BAD days in stored Grains sales

Many neighbors and co-workers even to the employer bought into long term, on farm storage of harvests to catch rising pricing rather than settle for low prices or poor price contracts, is biting them pretty hard right now as have to move last year's crops to allow storage/bin drying of this year's crops that are coming to harvest time.  Corn has begun coming out on a few early planted bottoms regions along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, these farms had to move older stored grains where took a walloping at major buyers as CG&B ADM and Cargill.  Most are noting a $1 to 1.20/bushel, minimum, and as high as $1.85/bushel LOSS for those stored grains against last season's LOW prices they tried to overcome.  That and fuel cost to haul has Not come down with the gasoline pricing drops.

be even tougher if the trains across  Canada don't start rolling soon !!!

Generally speaking, I’ve noticed over the years corn prices drop just before, and during harvest time unless a prolonged stretch of adverse weather hits the grain belt. Always best to have a diversified operation, grain, livestock of some sort, legumes, etc., the farmers that want to be strictly ‘tractor drivers’ have the highest level of financial risk.

There are options, key point, DON'T.  Let the ground lay Fallow a few years, mow or disc it under but plant Nothing.  Sure the banks will squeal as will the Farm Services Companies and Finance groups, but losing money year after year is NOT Helping either.

DMiller wrote: As spoke with others around our area, this is NOT limited to Grains now, seems to be becoming typical of all Meats and other produce production concern.  Seed, Feed, meds or fertilizers, all are gone nuts high, people want good fresh foods or meat yet not willing to pay for it even to just over cost to produce. Local Farmer's Markets have noted people stopped buying, not willing to pay for home grown anymore than buying the high dollar ship in stuff at Grocers.  Meat Markets are really tapped, they have to pay utilities increasing costs as well high wages for good skilled meat cutters and still under 2/3 of what Large Scale markets are charging.

You’re a crack up sometimes! Back when Trump put the tariffs in place you said no worries, just gotta store the grain. Here we 7 years later or something, Brandon kept vast majority of them in place. Farmers do need to sell their products eventually, don’t have a bottomless bank account to NOT SELL and to build even MORE storage .

Now you want people to leave land fallow . Apparently after they stored crops and sold at a loss. How’s that going to work? Just how rich are your farmers??

Meat going down? At the moment I’m at my annual meeting for next year’s seed. A guy just sold 3 day old angus/ Holstein cross calves for over $800 per head.

Leaving land fallow to drive up prices….classic prisoner’s dilemma game. You first! I’m right with ya!

Edited by Tbone95 - 27 Aug 2024 at 4:37pm

What is the maximum length of time corn can be stored, before mills refuse it, if for human consumption?

Well that's the key. Ya gotta maintain it. But, pumping warm humid air in to it during hot summer months to keep it dry doesn't seem like a good idea to me. This adds to the cost for storage and therefore raising the price required to at least break even. That's a gamble few are willing to risk?

Not hard to believe Ray when we now want blueberries available in February! Crazy though.

Something I’m pondering, one would think it would be a great time to expand livestock. Beef anyway since it’s the only market I follow. High calf/ beef prices and cheap feed. May only last a short time, but if you contracted it smartly…..

Ray54 wrote: I try to keep up with world happening, you guys do purdy good helping. But I just came across rather startling information.  THE USA HAS BECOME A NET IMPORTER OF FOOD ( figured in dollars not tons of food ). No it is not the staples that would keep us alive in really bad times. But the out of season fresh fruits and vegetables, and other more froufrou type of things. Forty years ago if we would stopped sending corn,wheat, and soybeans the world would of stopped and paid attention. Today not so much. Back in the 70's when Carter cut off grain sales to Russia, the Japanese took notice real quick. They started investing money in Brazil helping them become real competitor's in the grain market. Then Soviet Union disintegrated into all the traditional ethnic nation of  years past. So without government in the way, places like Ukraine also became real players in grain markets.  But even with the Ukraine not producing as much still more grain than the world really needs. Well maybe more grain than the world can afford to pay for. As I am sure there are countries that have people that could eat more and not be fat like most of us North Americans. But this was a punch in the gut to me. How are North American grain farmers going survive?

Poor government policy, for one, and probably more important is other countries don’t want our grain. Decades of GMO varieties, spraying every conceivable chemical on the land and crops, and the result is we have screwed our selves. All sorts of down right crappy basic staples.

Just like any business, you need to pencil it out. But with what beef on dairy cross calves bring right now, i think it would a tough business yo get into. Dry navel black face calves bringing 800 dollars, that is a lot of upfront costs. Not really why i raise any heifers now. Those cross bred calves are the most aggressive, healthy, calves i have ever seen

$800 for Holstein cross?
Curious what other dairy breeds crossed to beef, brings? Higher, lower?
What’s the going price for old cull Holstein cows, per head?

Lars(wi) wrote: $800 for Holstein cross? Curious what other dairy breeds crossed to beef, brings? Higher, lower? What’s the going price for old cull Holstein cows, per head?

Lars(wi) wrote: I was curious on the use of older cull dairy cows, although their milk production had dropped off, they could possibly have a couple ‘calf production’ years left in them. Cross bred to angus? Can an Angus bull get up on a mature Holstein cow, ‘deliver the goods’ without injuring himself? What would be the acquisition cost of the cow, feed, housing, for a calf nine months later, then raised to market weight?

maybe the angus could, but why? Just AI any bull you want from the catalog.

Lars(wi) wrote: Tbone95 wrote: Lars(wi) wrote: I was curious on the use of older cull dairy cows, although their milk production had dropped off, they could possibly have a couple ‘calf production’ years left in them. Cross bred to angus? Can an Angus bull get up on a mature Holstein cow, ‘deliver the goods’ without injuring himself? What would be the acquisition cost of the cow, feed, housing, for a calf nine months later, then raised to market weight? maybe the angus could, but why? Just AI any bull you want from the catalog. You could, but thinking on the lines using old worn out milk cows for a season or two, just for dropping a calf or two, crossed to black-faced beef bull. The old milker, even if just a 3-teat old hag. Save on AI expense. Of course, someone would looking at a 2+ yr turnaround. Who knows what commodity prices will be at that time.

I looked in great detail into AI “expense”.   Short answer, it’s not, at least not here. To buy everything AND hire an AI technician cost about what it costs to feed a bull, never mind buying a bull. If you learned to do it yourself it would cheaper and no care of a bull required. The only reason I didn’t switch to it was the time involved since I’m not a full time farmer just yet.

I gotcha Tbone, just thinking out loud here. When I read of ‘dry navel calf’ bringing $800.00 (holy crap). Back in the mid 1970’s to mid 1980’s when I was a farm hand, with 250 Holstein dairy cows, we sold off the bull calf’s as soon as there was a truckload of them, then they fetched about $125.00 a head. Back then, it was common practice to breed a Holstein heifer to a Hereford. Those calf’s were held back, and raised for beef depending on what the price of corn was. We also had 30-35 head herd of Hereford cows on a separate farm a few miles away. They got corn silage, haylage(3rd crop) and some baked hay, or baled cornstalks depending on the year. Granted they had all the equipment for harvesting crops for the main dairy operation. Any hay that got rained on went to the beef, 3rd cutting alfalfa went in the silo at the beef farm, etc.
Was really nice farm, rolling hills, all terraced by the CCC during the depression. Only drawback was the previous owner milked Brown Swiss at that farm, so the stanchions were too small for Holstein cows.