Odd details stick in a person’s mind, and I remember from years ago a small headline tucked into the back pages of a newspaper: “Soybeans sink on Brazilian rain.”

It seemed like much more than a random grouping of words that happened to fit the space (not quite the definition of headline writing, but close enough). It was poetry. And not just any old poetry, but macroeconomic poetry. Try finding that section at Barnes & Noble.

Still, the underlying message was nothing more than a basic principle that all farmers know: Good news is bad news.

If the weather is great and the crops look terrific, grain prices will suffer. If wonderful things are happening in some far-off, exotic place like Brazil or Illinois, that can only hurt us here in Iowa.

So – how’s that ethanol boom coming along?

Seems as if we’ve just gotten started building ethanol production plants. Corn prices are at levels that have farmers dreaming about chrome wheels for their combines. And already the naysaying is picking up steam.

Fortune magazine ran an article recently on the chances for a “dot-corn bubble.” It focused on a Minnesota farmer who is also a former president of the National Corn Growers Association, and described his nightmare scenario: “With so many farmers trying to cash in on $4 corn, land prices and rents skyrocket. … Eventually, land and input costs rise so much that farmers are making no more off $4 corn than they were at $2. Worse, their businesses are now riskier.”

Writing in The Nation magazine, Nicholas Von Hoffman suggested that building a better, more efficient transportation system would be a much better use of our time than making small changes in our fuel supply.

A New York Sun editorial said, “it has been almost 30 years since the government started propping up the ethanol industry, and the prop has become a crutch. Now ethanol advocates are trying to put it over that climate change ought to be a consideration, even though corn’s status as a ‘green’ fuel is, according to skeptics on both ends of the political spectrum, dubious at best.”

And in Foreign Affairs, we find an article headlined “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.” Two professors at the University of Minnesota argue that “the enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. … By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world.”

We finally find a way to make some real money on our specialty, after all these decades, and these spoilsports won’t let us enjoy it. It’s like waking up one day with the ability to fly, then finding out the experience just makes you queasy.

We’ve always liked to imagine that powerful forces are out there keeping the world hooked on petroleum instead of allowing brilliant new ideas to reach the marketplace. Which is probably true.

Now we’re on the other side of the conspiracy table. People seem to be implying that Iowa gets what it wants just because the state draws so much attention from presidential candidates. Which is probably true.

All these years, we’ve looked for a third crop to join corn and soybeans and boost our economy. It turns out the answer was “caucuses.”