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Elevators, end-users also battling corn market uncertainty

An economist says the unknown size of the upcoming corn harvest has elevators and end users dealing with volatility in the markets. 

Tanner Ehmke with CoBank tells Brownfield they’re not certain what kind of crop availability they will have later this fall. “What end-users and grain merchandisers have been doing is they’ve been bidding up for old crop supplies trying to entice the farmer to bring those supplies in.”

Ehmke says they found cash bids have surged, then dropped back, and moved forward again, creating havoc for some elevators. “Really, the worst of what we looked at was in the eastern corn belt, specifically of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, somewhat in Illinois as well, and that’s where a lot of that volatility is in cash bids and in basis.”

And, he says the many farmers that are storing grain on the farm have added to the problem. “The grain elevator especially needs the bushels in order to move those bushels or to make a profit on trading those bushels and storing.”

The CoBank report says Grain handlers will most likely need to compete for bushels in regions that are corn-deficit.

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