By Julie Ingwersen and Heather Schlitz
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. farmers are harvesting two of the largest corn and soybean crops in history at the fastest pace in years, straining their physical capabilities and grain storage capacity.
The massive influx of crops is testing growers already struggling with grain prices at record lows nearly four years ago, fierce competition for global export sales and farm incomes down 23% from a record high of just two years ago.
Many Midwestern farmers are still stockpiling grain as of 2023 after refusing to sell a record corn crop due to low prices. Now, dry weather is speeding up this year’s harvests and forcing grain handlers in some areas to store corn outdoors instead of in storage bins.
“It was fast and furious,” Brent Johnson, a corn and soybean farmer in Ashland, Illinois, said of the harvest.
Weeks of warm, dry weather in the Corn Belt this fall accelerated crop maturity and kept combines rolling. As a result, as of October 13, farmers had harvested 47% of the nation’s second-largest corn crop in history, surpassing the five-year average of 39%, according to U.S. data.
Harvesting of the record soybean crop was 67% complete as of Oct. 13, the fastest pace since 2012, when a major drought limited production.
Jeff O’Connor, who grows corn and soybeans near Kankakee, Ill., said his workers had only a few half days off to rest last month because of the rapid harvest.
“My people and equipment would like a break,” he said.
As the soy crop declines, farmers are turning to corn, which typically yields more than three times as much grain per acre as soybeans. At some elevators in the Midwest, the flow of corn from the fields has filled the storage area, creating long lines of trucks waiting to dump their loads.
In Shell Rock, Iowa, ethanol producer POET is storing corn on the ground, said local farmer Caleb Hamer, adding that he dumped some of his crop into a pile that looked like it contained 1.5 million bushels.
“We’re harvesting a crop too fast for our storage infrastructure. That’s the bottom line,” said Chad Henderson, founder of Wisconsin-based Prime Agricultural Consultants.
Rapid harvests and local storage shortages are forcing farmers to consider selling some crops for less than the cost to produce them. Still, corn futures prices indicate they should hold the grain for a few months, if possible.
On the Chicago Board of Trade, December corn futures were trading at a discount of about 22 cents to the May 2025 contract. That means farmers can earn 22 cents per bushel by selling their corn for delayed delivery in May.
Still, growers shouldn’t store their harvest without making some sales and risk a deeper market decline, said CoBank economist Tanner Ehmke.
Chris Gibbs, who grows corn and soybeans in Ohio, said that for the first time in 48 years of farming, he has not made advance arrangements to sell his fall crops.
“My marketing plan is to keep my head down and wait for an opportunity, which is a very bad plan,” Gibbs said.
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen and Heather Schlitz in Chicago. Editing by Tom Polansek and Marguerita Choy)
