The Midwest flooding crisis has already damaged grain and potentially many grain bin structures and is expected to present problems into July, impacting the current planting season.
A geospatial intersection of Farm Market iD’s land data with a flood map from March 16-24, 2019, showed that Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas are experiencing significant impacts from the flooding.
- Nearly 150,000 growers in the four-state region are affected by the flooding
- Nearly 90,000 grain bins are located in the flooded areas valued at $4 billion just for the structures alone
- 1.24 billion bushels of storage capacity in the affected area – equating to 31% of the on-farm grain storage valued at an estimated $7.5 billion
- More than 16 million corn, soybean or wheat acres are located in the affected region
Contaminated grain stored on-farm
With as much as $7.5 billion worth of grain stored in the flooded region, the economic impact on local growers is substantial and comes on top of several years of low commodity prices that have already financially stressed farmers.
“The amount and cost of lost grain and the construction costs to rebuild will impact farmers for years, and some may have a hard time recovering,” says Steve Rao, CEO at Farm Market iD. “That said, the majority of on-farm grain storage has not been affected.”
Potential for delayed planting and impact to crop protection
The flooding damage may also mean delayed planting for many growers in the affected states. Additionally, the wetter than normal conditions at-planting and after planting will significantly impact growers’ crop protection plans.
Farm Market iD’s data leverages eight-year field-level crop rotation, crop yields, commodity prices and weather data to project field-level planting decisions. By employing multivariate regression analysis and statistical models to analyze and project planting decisions for corn, soybean, wheat and cotton, Farm Market iD can predict planted acres in 20 states covering more than 200 million acres.
The 16 million acres of predicted corn, soy and wheat in the affected areas constitute an estimated 8 percent of the total predictive planting in the Farm Market iD database. While this is a small percentage, if your market share or overall revenue growth strategy requires you to gain significant business in these affected states, this is likely going to impact the results you see, and you may need to adjust your strategy as a result.
