A few weeks ago, I wrote a column for this eNewsletter spelling out why I thought 2010 would turn out to be a good year for ag retail. In that piece, I quoted the recent USDA report on crop mix showing increases for corn and soybeans, various reports on expected insect and weed pressures, and a few comments regarding soils in need of some fresh crop nutrients as evidence of this belief.
Of course, one long-time reader sent me a note, asking about one variable I’ve used for years to gauge how the economy will do in the year ahead that was missing from the story.
“What about the Kirby turkey?” wrote the reader. “What did it indicate for the 2010?”
Now, some background for those of you who might be unfamiliar with the turkey story. A couple of years ago, I wrote a column for our magazine detailing how the free Thanksgiving turkeys my father received from his old company, Kirby Vacuum, usually mirrored the financial health of the world, but in reverse. By its nature relying on independent salespeople for income, Kirby historically has sold more vacuum cleaners in down economic years and fewer in up ones. The turkeys usually tell the tale. Bigger turkeys (traditionally more than 17 pounds) meant tough times ahead for the rest of the world. Smaller ones meant good times. Since the 1970s, this turkey pattern has been a pretty good indicator of how the nation would fair in the coming year.
Now there’s a very good reason why I hadn’t mentioned the turkey predictor for 2010 in my earlier column.
There wasn’t one.
For the first time in its 90-plus-year history, Kirby didn’t hand out free turkeys for Thanksgiving in 2009. The company’s new owners blamed the Great Depression for this change in policy.
Based upon past experience, a zero-pound turkey from Kirby in 2009 should have indicated that 2010 would be the best economic year, ever. However, conventional wisdom tells me that more likely, no turkey seems to indicate that Kirby as a company is now in step with the rest of the nation’s businesses, suffering through a difficult economic time.
So I’ve lost the ability to predict the year to come based upon turkey weight. Instead, I guess I’ll have to pay attention to crop reports and university research data to figure out how the industry will do going forward, just like everybody else.
