Mark Weinraub and P.J. Huffstutter reported for Reuters on farmers who are being forced to chop up soybeans back into the soil due to a lack of options for storage and marketing. Years of bumper harvests have led to around 20% of overall US storage to be filled with last year’s crop. That would cause an issue in and of itself, but with the trade war significantly reducing Chinese soybean purchases, the situation is dire for some producers.
Across the country, grain storage is at a premium, which means that some producers are paying 40% more to store crops, about 3 to 6 cents a bushel. Others are being turned away when their soybeans are in less than perfect condition or being charge high dockage fees. These high fees have led some producers to hire lawyers to seek legal action against grain elevators, but many are merely dumping their grain anywhere they can as they hope for the outlook to improve.
