This year has been rife with trials and tribulations for corn growers after an unseasonably cool summer led to an almost unexpectedly cold fall.
Growers have worked tirelessly these past few months working to bring in a crop before Christmas and before the harsher weather sets in.
Many were even concerned about bringing in a crop at all.
With most of the corn out of the fields, the markets are what corn growers are concerned with now.
Many are left wondering if corn futures hold up with this influx of corn.
Many are left asking why they didn’t skyrocket when some feared the corn would rot in the fields.
The answer is a simple tenant of economics – the law of supply and demand.
In a normal year, the price of corn would tend to go down because of the influx of corn coming in from the fields.
To some, this time is known as the harvest lows.
Until recently, however, with the late harvest, corn prices are holding steady: around $3.50 to $3.60 per bushel.
According to Lee Hassebrook, a corn grower in the Platte Center, “They (the grain elevators) didn’t think they would have enough corn.”
Now that the corn is coming out of the fields and into the elevators, prices are beginning to come down.
Elevators are starting to become saturated and are using outdoor storage as the bins begin filing to capacity.
“The prices will stay down until somebody decides that they need some more corn,” Hassebrook said.
Prices will probably start to go up during the spring, Hassebrook said.
Blythe McAffe, a junior agronomy major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said her family will start storing corn if prices start going down and once they get the right moisture content – a continuing problem in many parts of the state.
But low corn prices aren’t bad news for everyone in the agriculture industry.
For farmers such as the McAffe family, who also raise cattle, low corn prices mean cheaper corn-based feeds.
Even though things are looking up in the corn harvest, it is still far from over. As of Nov. 24, the United States Department of Agriculture projected that the harvest was still 2 1/2 weeks behind the average.
The growing season this year promised a bumper crop.
Now it’s just a matter of markets, moisture and getting it out of the field.
“An excellent crop this year,” McAffe said. “Just way too wet.”
ashleyburns@dailynebraskan.com
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