OGDEN, Iowa—As harvest wraps up, farmers will be storing large amounts of unpriced corn and soybeans. Expect most farm cash flows to remain tight despite access to the new Marketing Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. Storing these unpriced bushels likely requires an understanding of your own cash flow needs along with a written crop marketing plan. That plan should consider reasonable price and time objectives, local basis, futures carry and cost of ownership for those bushels being stored.

Learn to use a variety of crop marketing tools and compare these strategies to just storing bushels unpriced.  Attend the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Ag Marketing Club meeting on Thursday, November 15 at the Leonard Good Community Center, 114 SW 8th St. in Ogden. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. and doors open at 6 p.m.

The featured speakers will be Steve Johnson, ISU Extension Farm Management Specialist and Ed Kordick, Commodity Services Manager with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. They will team teach on the topic “Does Storing Unpriced Crops Really Pay.” Participants will review the importance of understanding basis, carry and comparing the cost of ownership using Central Iowa trends for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 crops.

The meeting is free and open to the public thanks to sponsorship from Vision Bank and Iowa Corn Growers Association. For further information, please contact Alex Merk at the Boone County Extension Office at (515) 432-3882 or alexmerk@iastate.edu.

For more information on ISU Extension crop marketing education including videos, a marketing tools workbook as well as basis and cash price tracking tables, search http://tinyurl.com/iacrops.

Ed Kordick, Commodity Services Manager with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation

Steve Johnson, ISU Extension Farm Management Specialist

(contributed article and photo, ISU Ext)