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2016 Logan County Fall Farm Outlook Magazine
Lincoln Daily News
Oct. 27, 2016
11
helps with profitability in 2016
On-farm
By Teena Lowery
Farmers in 2016 are storing more corn on
their farms to keep from paying storage fees
at the local elevator as a way to increase their
profits. “On our farm we’ve stored as much
corn as we can and with the idea that we’ve
delivered to the elevator whatever forward
contracts we had from back when it was hot
and dry in June and the price had a four in
front of it basically. Once harvest started we
weren’t incredibly happy with the $3.10 corn
price (as of printing that price is $3.30). So
we decided we’d put it in the bin and to be
truthful it’s paid off, just from the beginning
of harvest until now, we’re experiencing a
little rally here in the last week to ten days in
the corn market.”
While on-farm storage is helping to increase
profitability, Olson also notes that the basis is
a very important factor, too. “But the other
side of that is the basis. The basis would be
the difference between the board of trade price
and the elevator cash price. “The basis is
basically controlled around here by ADM in
Decatur, who does a lot of determining what
the basis is going to be and then the elevators,
say Elkhart Grain Company, would react to
that. Here in the last week or ten days we’ve
seen ADM kind of push or basically make
the basis better, make that gap between the
Chicago Board of Trade and the elevator’s
cash price smaller, so it’s adding value to the
crop.”
“I was just talking to my marketing guy and
“Every grain bin in the countryside is full of corn and
soybeans, and my guess would be that the majority of it
would be corn,” says Blane Olson of Olson Farms.
Continued ►
Photos by Casey Jones