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Corn and soybean price reboot

The CEO of Farm Credit Services of America describes the last several years of low commodity prices as a reboot for corn and soybeans.

“The grain industry has really spent the last four or five years kind of reconciling a different price and margin environment.”

Mark Jensen says strong production and increased volatility has put a lot of pressure on profit margins in the half-decade since $6-dollar corn and $14-dollar soybeans.

“And really kind of reset the industry from an overall profitability perspective.”

And Jensen doesn’t see any sign the price environment will be changing soon.

“There’s a lot of grain inventory in the Midwest right now, and we’re assuming that we’re kind of sitting in this level of price for the foreseeable future.”

Jensen says some of his customers are running out of options as working capital erodes and are considering restructuring debt or deferring payments.

Farm Credit Services of America is based in Omaha, Nebraska and serves 57,000 clients across the Midwest.