ALTOONA, Iowa – As the harvest wraps up, farmers will be storing large amounts of unpriced corn and soybeans. Expect most farm cash flows to remain tight despite access to the new Marketing Facilitation Program (MFP) payments.
Storing these unpriced bushels likely requires an understanding of your own cash flow needs along with a written crop marketing plan. The plan should consider reasonable price and time objectives, local basis, futures carry and the cost of ownership for those stored bushels.
Farmers can learn to use a variety of crop-marketing tools and compare these strategies simply to storing the commodity unpriced by attending one of the three Central Iowa Ag Marketing Club meetings scheduled for mid-November.
- Tuesday, Nov. 13 – First State Bank, 413 East St., Lynnville, Iowa
- Wednesday, Nov. 14 – Mid Iowa Co-op Grain Merchandising, 209 N. Lincoln St., Conrad, Iowa
- Thursday, Nov. 15 – Ogden Community Center, 114 S.W. Eighth St., Ogden, Iowa
Doors open at 6 p.m., and the meetings start at 6:30 p.m.
The featured speakers will be Steve Johnson, ISU Extension farm management specialist, and Ed Kordick, commodity services manager with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. They will team teach on the topic, Does Storing Unpriced Crops Really Pay?
Participants will review the importance of understanding basis, carry and comparing the cost of ownership using Central Iowa trends for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 crops.
Club meetings are open to the public, and there may be a small fee that can be paid at the door. For more information, contact the Poweshiek County Extension Office at 641-623-5188, the Grundy County Extension Office at 319-824-6979 or the Boone County Extension Office at 515-432-3882.
For more information on ISU Extension crop marketing education, including videos, a marketing tools workbook as well as basis and cash price tracking tables, visit the ISU Extension website.
