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3. 2008 National Women in Agriculture Educators Conference

Grain Management Decisions at Harvest

Garrett Stoerger

Summary

This session examines a producer’s method for grain delivery, grain inventory management, and grain storage using excel-based Farm Analysis Solution Tools (FAST). A series of three different tools assist in the decision making process for analyzing grain storage decisions, managing grain inventories for multiple entities, and calculating the economic feasibility of constructing on-farm storage.

The addition of new ethanol plants have made harvest delivery options more abundant. With more options for delivery locations comes more opportunity for additional revenue if delivery decisions are analyzed to determine the most profitable outcome. The first segment of the presentation demonstrates the use of a FAST spreadsheet that performs the necessary calculations to determine the delivery location that yields the highest net return.

Grain inventory management can often times be burdensome, especially to those farmers who maintain leases with multiple landowners and must keep track of grain from the field to the bin. The ability to define a range of crops, grain owners, storage locations, and leasing arrangements can simplify this process considerably. The second segment of the session highlights the use of the FAST grain management tool. Reports can be generated for all bushels owned, stored, contracted, LDP-applied, and so on.

Lastly, high commodity prices are making producers take a long look at building on-farm storage. Current conditions have changed the economics of purchasing grain storage. The final part of the presentation demonstrates a FAST spreadsheet that examines costs associated with construction, maintenance, and financing of the new storage. Moreover, a cost/benefit analysis of on-farm vs. commercial storage is also addressed.

This grain management educational program was presented to a group of farm women at an Annie’s Project session to inform them of the available tools they can use to make harvest-time decisions. FAST CD´s will be provided to all attendees.

Details

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