Spring is on its way. Well, some time. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a nice day...chilly, but nice with the sun shining.
I drove to the WGM shuttle east of Macomb to pick up a check. There were loaded semis pulling in and loaded semis waiting to unload corn, and empty semis leaving. I asked if they had a train coming, and was told they loaded one Sunday and are expecting to do the same thing this weekend. Farmers are at a time when taxes are due, prepaid expenses are to be paid to take advantage of any discounts on early pay, but the grain prices received are not what was hoped for.
However, I told WGM if they ever wanted the bean price to go up, call me and I would sell and the next day they would jump and progressively raise for several days. I was joking because I don’t really have that control, but that’s what happened. The bean price had gone up and stopped, so I sold what was stored because South America’s bean crop would be on the market soon, and would lower the market.
Well, prices yesterday were $11.24 for beans and $4.35 for corn at Beardstown. That’s a lot of change from $10.33 a week ago. However, I just read this morning where they are finding mold in Brazil’s bean crop because of all the rain they have received during the growing season.
Judges are looking into price-fixing by two major suppliers of fertilizer. The story seems to be they could be restricting production of fertilizer to raise prices (which they have done compared to a year ago when prices were anywhere from $100 to $52 a ton cheaper).
