Grim reaping for 2020 corn
Producers face loss of grain, money and storage
T-R photo by Garry Brandenburg — Key Cooperative General Manager Boyd Brodie said the grain-receiving facility near LeGrand was hit hard by the Aug. 10 derecho. The co-op is dealing with six million bushels of storage space lost.
After the Aug. 10 derecho ripped through Marshall County and decimated corn fields, some of the broken and flattened crops have turned brown and are dying. Some are starting to mold, and crop producers are in a holding pattern until crop insurance agents or adjusters can review the derecho destruction.
Doug Burns, vice president of related services for Farm Credit Services of America, covers all of Central Iowa — including Marshall County.
“In my 30 years of experience, I have never seen anything like the magnitude of this disaster,” he said. “It’s typically been a hail storm, which is narrow. But — north to south, east to west — I have never seen such destruction caused by wind to crops in the state of Iowa.”
Based on reports from his agent teams, the damage in Marshall County is severe. A lot of the corn is down and in the 11 days since the derecho struck, there has been no improvement.
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson said the corn looks bad in Marshall County and Central Iowa. There was a question following the derecho about whether or not some of it might bounce back.
“Fields are continuing to go downhill since the storm came through,” Anderson said.
How much of the crop is salvageable is the million dollar question, she said, but the presence of mold is an additional concern.
“Some ear mold and rot can cause toxins which are dangerous to feed to livestock,” Anderson said. “There might be a good percentage that, if it is harvestable, the value will be questionable.”
Waiting for insurance adjusters
Many producers are feeling the desire to get rid of the devastation sitting on their land. However, Burns urged them to resist.
Corn in Marshall County was flattened and is dying following the widespread destruction of the Aug. 10 derecho. The vibrant green is a field of soybeans, a crop which was not impacted near as much.
“Please contact your crop insurance agent immediately, if you have not already done so,” he said. “Do not tear anything up. Producers are wanting to chop up the destruction, but tearing it up now without a release from your insurance will have a major impact on your claim.”
Burns also said corn producers need to become very familiar with their policies and what level of coverage they have. He said they need to know their deductibles and what guarantees are included.
Producers can rest assured that they should not wait long. Burns said several insurance companies in Iowa have enlisted the help of agents and insurance adjusters based outside of the state.
“That is good news and is encouraging,” he said.
Once an adjuster has time to assess the damage, they will be able to determine what can be harvested and what can be destroyed. However, it is too early to know that yet.
Jeff Hibbs is a corn producer west of Albion who is waiting for an insurance adjuster. He was in Missouri checking on his farming operations there when the derecho hit. Even though he did not see the storm, Hibbs has felt the impact.
“Almost everything is flat,” he said. “Some are worse than others, but yeah. It appears I have lost half of my corn crop.”
Hibbs does not know the extent of the damage until the adjuster arrives and assesses.
He had planned to combine his corn when it reached maturity on Sept. 27. While Hibbs still plans to hold to that schedule, the process will not be easy.
Boyd Brodie, the general manager of Key Cooperative, said one of the methods corn producers could use in harvesting damaged corn is harvesting rows in one direction, such as east to west.
“Then they have to go back to the beginning and do it again,” Brodie said. “That will really increase the cost and slow down the pace of the harvest. It is going to be much different than normal.”
Already facing hardships
Most of the corn Hibbs produces is taken to Mid-Iowa Co-Op and then sent to ethanol plants.
The ethanol and bio-fuel industries already had a difficult road before the derecho with the Environmental Protection Agency issuing Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) exemptions to refineries.
The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) on Tuesday submitted a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to fulfill his promise to protect the RFS and to implement the program at statutory levels. However, as the letter pointed out, that level has not been enforced since Trump took office. The IRFA thanked the president for visiting Iowa on Monday, but due to the destruction of the derecho, more action is needed.
“Rural Iowa will not complete the long road back to normal without robust and stable markets for our crops and biofuels,” the letter stated.
Not only do corn producers who provide for ethanol plants have to deal with the exemptions, but also with the lack of traveling people are doing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brodie said all these aspects have affected the viability of ethanol plants.
“They were in a poor position even before the storm,” Brodie said. “The derecho will have a huge impact on prices.”
Hibbs will use whatever help he can get, and he said other Marshall County corn producers will more likely do the same.
“The market has been under a lot of pressure for quite some time,” he said. “Man. It’s just been tough all around.”
Lack of storage
Another challenge Hibbs will face with the salvageable corn is where to put it. The grain bins on his farm received minor damage, but storage will be a valuable commodity for many producers. A lot of Marshall County grain elevators and bins received significant damage. Bins resembling crushed aluminum pop cans can be spotted throughout the county.
Brodie said Key Cooperative, which has a location in Marshalltown, had 40 bins damaged at 10 of the 15 grain receiving locations. Of the 40, 20 were completely destroyed.
“They were emptied ahead of the harvest,” Brodie said. “The ones that are full were not completely decimated, but there is damage to the roofs so they are unusable. We had six million bushels of space destroyed and 12 to 40 million damaged.”
Brodie said they are anticipating they will be able to fix all the bins – except for the ones completely destroyed – in time for the harvest which should start in the middle of September.
Plus, before the derecho, Key Cooperative was in the process of building storage space for 3.5 million bushels.
“We were building that additional space because we were expecting a bigger harvest than we had ever had,” Brodie said. “There was a phenomenal corn crop developing until Aug. 10. So, adding that space will help with the six million bushel space loss.”
He said Key Cooperative will be able to take care of customers.
How the estimated 8.2 million acres of impacted corn in Iowa will affect markets is also unknown. Brodie estimates the effect from the lower amount of corn will be felt locally and should last anywhere from six to 12 months.
“Marshalltown will feel it,” Brodie said. “It is definitely going to make it difficult for the farmers who will experience a profit loss with the loss of grain and the loss of revenue. It was extremely difficult before and it has only gotten worse. The derecho was the tail of a string of events in 2020 that will impact us for several years to come.”
Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.
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- T-R photo by Garry Brandenburg — Key Cooperative General Manager Boyd Brodie said the grain-receiving facility near LeGrand was hit hard by the Aug. 10 derecho. The co-op is dealing with six million bushels of storage space lost.
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- Corn in Marshall County was flattened and is dying following the widespread destruction of the Aug. 10 derecho. The vibrant green is a field of soybeans, a crop which was not impacted near as much.
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