The trade war is opening a wide price gap in Minnesota just as farmers are bringing in the 2018 harvest, reports the Star Tribune.
On Thursday, the cash bid for soybeans at the Red River Grain Co. in Breckenridge, MN, on the North Dakota border, was $7 per bushel. That was 50 cents less than, or about 7% below, the bid price at the Byron Agri Center near Rochester, MN.
In normal times, soybean prices in elevators in western Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota are competitive with prices elsewhere in the Midwest.
Mike Trosen, general manager of Meadowland Farmers Co-op in Lamberton, MN, said his elevator usually ships soybeans to the Pacific and doesn’t have a good rail connection to St. Louis. The elevator and local farmers are just going to have to wait out the trade dispute, he told the Star Tribune.
“A lot of ours is going into local processors, but they buy in fits and starts as needed,” Trosen said. “For the most part we’re not selling any beans.”
