US faces shortage of grain storage capacity due to record harvest

This fall, the US is forecasting a record harvest of 21.5 billion bushels (≈ 548 million tons) of grain crops — corn, soybeans and sorghum. At the same time, elevators and traders are facing limited storage capacity, which makes it difficult to process the crop efficiently. This is reported by Agdaily.com.

According to CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, this year’s storage space will be extremely limited, and grain traders will be forced to charge higher fees due to limited capacity and strained infrastructure.

“The problem for elevators will be prioritizing limited storage space for grain. The 12 leading US corn-producing states face a vertical storage deficit of 1.4 billion bushels (≈ 35.7 million tons) this year, as elevators rely more on bunkers and emergency storage, such as ground stacks. This year’s deficit contrasts sharply with last year, when these states had a 361 million bushel (≈ 9.2 million tonnes) surplus in storage,” said Tanner Emke, a grains and oilseeds economist at CoBank.

He said U.S. soybean exports are lagging far behind previous years, with sales down 51%. At the same time, strong demand for corn and wheat is allowing U.S. grain elevators to focus on those crops and plan for limited capacity more effectively.

Tags: corn, soybean, USA, grain storage, sorghum