Another grain harvest is successfully in the books for you and your cooperative. It was a very good year for our patrons and Farmers Coop Society. Soybean receipts were a record for FCS and were up 20% from a year ago. Good weather and exceptional farming practices contributed to this feat along with your continued support. Corn receipts were as expected considering the strong demand in the area due to a pipeline that was empty coming into the harvest season.

Although most producers were expecting a quick harvest, us included, harvest was wrapped up by the middle of November in all areas. Warm dry conditions have allowed you to complete tillage and get a good start on agronomy applications for the 2022 crop. 

Corn and soybean prices have stayed elevated this fall due to strong local feed and ethanol demand and soybean processing margins. The local markets will dictate prices this marketing year versus exports last marketing year, thus allowing good prices to continue into 2022. 

Improvements at several of our locations this year made it easier and more efficient to handle your harvest. The addition of the bunker walls in Little Rock enabled us to transfer less grain. The bunker pad was resurfaced which will help maintain grain quality. The addition of the new 750,000 bushel bin in Boyden enabled us to keep grain off the ground and speed up deliveries of inbound grain. It also added more storage in front of our largest feed mill to ensure a constant quality corn supply. With these improvements we have handled grain more efficiently and with less waste as our temporary ground storage is significantly less than a year ago. 

Grain quality looks to be very good this year. Corn moisture was more than expected but most likely as a result of big yields. Persistent rains during soybean harvest also kept the moisture higher on beans than was expected but still very manageable. Keep an eye on your bin stored grain as this crop will most likely store differently than last year. Don’t let your hard-earned harvest go to waste while not watching the bins. The markets are presenting very good prices that should be used to move quality suspect grain. We haven’t announced the opening of free delayed price at the time of this writing but believe that it will be coming as the calendar turns to 2022. 

Please keep us in mind for all your grain marketing needs, from farm pickup/processor direct ship to specialty contracts to simple cash contracting. It’s also never too early to begin thinking about marketing next year's crop as the market has given good opportunities to make sales thus far. 

We again thank you for your continued patronage and look forward to a safe and prosperous 2022.