News

Minnesota farmer dodges coronavirus bear market for the most part

A southeast Minnesota farmer says he’s fortunate to have marketed most of his 2019 crop before the coronavirus outbreak sunk prices.

Ryan Buck of Goodhue tells Brownfield last year’s planting delays provided some opportunities to lock in some profit.

“I took advantage of marketing some ahead, but didn’t market ahead the total crop because I didn’t know at the time what (kind of crop) I was producing. But marketed quite a bit, so I’m sitting pretty good on that end.”

For the unpriced grain, Buck says he’ll have to wait and see.

“If this (coronavirus) kind of subsides here, and if we run into a hiccup during spring planting somewhere across the Corn Belt with weather or what it may be, maybe it will drive those prices back up a little bit.”

Buck isn’t planning any changes to his corn and soybean rotation.  But depending on the USDA Prospective Planting report Tuesday, he says he would consider moving some acres around if the futures market favored one crop over the other.