Elevators Full Of Unsold Wheat Amid Fall Harvest

[Purveyor]

(09-29) 05:49 PDT Wichita, Kan. (AP) --

Amid a global glut of wheat stockpiles, grain elevators across parts of the Great Plains remain crammed with unsold winter wheat as facilities brace for expected bumper fall harvests of corn, sorghum and soybeans.

"This is going to be putting a lot of pressure on storage facilities and the transportation system. Overseas buyers are sitting on their hands seeing these prices continue to fall," said Mike Woolverton, a grain marketing economist at Kansas State University.

The lackluster demand for wheat has clogged the nation's grain-handling pipeline, particularly in major wheat-producing states like Kansas where a good winter wheat crop this summer will be followed by anticipated record harvests of other crops this fall.

"From a physical handling perspective, we are fully expecting grain to be placed on the ground in some areas," said Tom Tunnell, executive director of the Kansas Grain and Feed Association, the industry group for the state's elevators.

Most of that grain likely will be sorghum, which has the lowest value and is easiest to store on the ground, he said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/29/national/a000043D35.DTL#ixzz0SW69YE3o

[Purveyor]

1. Indeed the price of wheat flour is plunging at our local mid-michigan markets.

Yesterday I found Pillsbury flour for $1.39 5#bag. Last years it was around $2.49.

Sugar is a different story however.

[wuushew]

2. Will this result in lower grocery prices?

if so how soon?

[kestrel91316]

3. Time for me to stock up on flour for the upcoming baking season.

I bake my own bread when the weather is cool enough - we are finally out of our hideous summer heat, so that's NOW!!

Yum, bread and pie and cookies and cakes. And the added bonus is, since my car was stolen and I am walking and biking a lot, I have dropped a couple of pounds and can now afford to EAT MY GOODIES!!!!! Yay!!!

I just knew that huge cloud had to have a silver lining somewhere.

[Purveyor]

4. I predicting .99 for a 5# bag before Thanksgiving. Hoping at least, as we use a lot of flour in our

pet treat business.

Heck, the same store even had large eggs for .57 a dozen.

[nc4bo]

5. Predicting milk and dairy cow surpluses....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/business/29dairy.html?_r=2&hp

HANFORD, Calif. — Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers.
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Heifers feeding at DeGroot Farm in Hanford, Calif.
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Newborn calves feeding on the De Groot farm.

Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse.

The dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it.

More pain for Michigan:

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/glut_of_milk_hurting_michigan.html

HOLLAND — Despite a worldwide milk glut that has sent prices plummeting, Michigan dairy farmers continue to produce milk at a loss, relying on subsidies to get them by as they wait for prices to improve.

Producers face higher costs but less demand for milk, partly because of a dried-up export market.

Just two years ago, around 10 percent of the state's milk went to Asian and other markets, but none of it is exported now, said Ira Krupp, a dairy expert with Michigan State University Extension.

"When the world economy went in the toilet, so did our export market," Krupp told The Holland Sentinel for a story published Monday.

At the heart of the problem is the nature of milk. Unlike grain farmers who can hold out for better prices by storing crops in a silo, dairymen must sell raw milk to processors or else it spoils. And cows keep producing regardless of economic conditions.

[Purveyor]

7. Heard the second story on Michigan Farm Radio just the afternoon. Thanks for posting. eom

[JVS]

6. Well it wouldn't kill most of the people in this country to have the food prices go down a bit.

The prices have gone up a lot in recent years.

[gmoney]

8. can we donate some to starving people?

I'm pretty sure there are still lots of 'em around the world.

Of course, price of transport may be more than the value of the grain.