With low Mississippi River, Iowa farmers look for other ways to sell harvest

After a bone-dry summer in Eastern Iowa, some farmers now are waiting out rain showers to harvest what threatens to be a lackluster crop of corn and soybeans.

The drought also has caused low water levels on the Mississippi River — especially south of St. Louis — that means barges can’t carry as much grain without getting stuck. That raises the price of exporting crops.

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“You have a given amount of freight — in our case soybeans, grain or other ag products — that needs to be accommodated by a limited supply of barges,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, based in Ankeny. “That puts upward pressure on barge rates. Rates out of St. Louis are 70 percent higher than the three-year average. Freight out of Memphis is 90 percent higher than the three-year average.”

Harvest of corn and soybeans in Iowa is about a week ahead of schedule because of dry conditions, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship reported. Nearly 80 percent of Iowa’s topsoil rated short or very short of moisture for the week of Sept. 11-17.

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The mid-August heat wave that brought 100-degree temperatures with scant nighttime reprieve took a toll on the crops growing on the Delaware County farm Bob Ryan farms with his father, uncle and brother.

“You knew the corn was not finished and you could see the ears hanging straight down. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Ryan, 40. “We just didn’t know how much of the field was going to be like that.”

But test weights of some of the corn before harvest indicate yield shouldn’t be too far below normal, he said. Soybeans are a different story.

“The beans are very small,” he said. “There are a lot of places where it looks like there will be three beans in the pod, but there’s only two there because one shriveled up.”

Ryan’s family had harvested about 15 percent of their soybeans by Wednesday, but were having to wait for the crop to dry after periodic rain showers this week. If the bean stems are wet, they are difficult to feed into the combine.

Soybeans transported down the Mississippi River from states like Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota make up 58 percent of all U.S. soybean exports, the Soy Transportation Coalition reported.

Iowa farmers who live 30 minutes to an hour from the Mississippi River may choose to drive their beans to barge-loading terminals along the river. Beans are stowed on barges that float down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where they are transferred to ocean vessels that can take the beans to China, the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans.

But when barge rates go up, farmers look for other places to sell their beans, Steenhoek said.

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“You’ll see diversion to rail, which means taking it (bean harvest) to Pacific Northwest for export or down to Mexico,” he said.

Iowa farmers have the advantage of selling beans and grain to processors, including Cargill, ADM and Ingredion. Farmers also may sell corn to ethanol plants or store grain and beans until the price paid for the commodities goes up or barge prices go down.

“We have enough bins. We can store all our crops,” Ryan said. “A lot of people who are younger and are renting farms don’t have bin storage. Their plan has been to take it directly from the farm to the processors in town.”

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