News

Record crop remains storage challenge

The record 2016 corn and soybean crop has caused storage challenges across the Corn Belt.

Tom Farley from Farm City Elevator in Darien, Wisconsin says they have been steadily moving the crop by rail, but they needed extra capacity at harvest time.  “We had two uncovered piles that we picked up and are gone, and we’ve got two covered piles that will probably stay there for a while.  They’ve got aeration on them, so they should be fine for a while.”

Dave Schoonover is the General Manager for United Ag Co-op in Almena, Wisconsin.  He tells Brownfield they also had a temporary storage problem but avoided storing the crop outdoors.  “We ended up actually shipping out a fair amount of soybeans in order to create additional space for corn harvest, so there were problems.  We ended up being actually down without the ability to bring in grain for probably about a day and a half.”

He says they have also done some direct shipping from some of their member’s farms.

Schoonover says the co-op has bought a lot of corn and beans, but like any business, it has to watch its overhead costs.  “We’re fine, but we are at the upper limits of where I really am starting to feel a little pressure.  You know we’re good from that standpoint, but it wouldn’t take a whole lot more expense and I would say something’s got to give, either we’ve got to move some grain to generate cash or we’ve got to find a way to back off of some of the expenses.”

The elevator operators say what’s needed is some new demand to get the crop moving.