Corn Prices and Rain Make Me Giddy

I am driving through Fairfield County today, when I hear the distinguished voice of Dale Minyo.  I reached to turn it up and told the girls to quiet down.  Just as he began the story about corn prices going down the limit today.  I almost thought it was some kind of April Fool's Joke, but it isn't and corn is going down rapidly. I called a friend of ours and corn producer Jon Miller who is also a Board Member on the Ohio Corn Growers, for the update. He with more disappointment than I, explained that the USDA planting reports came out on Thursday at 11:30AM and then corn went down the limit of 40 cents.  The report had a couple key components that started the trend downward, one was that they are predicting more acres to be planted this spring than there has been since 1936.  Secondly they have realized that there were more than 500 million bushels of corn in storage on farms and elevators that they didn't have accounted for last month.  The market then was closed Friday and obviously the weekend to open today, where the market could have went down an additional 60 cents since it went down the limit the market day before.  However it only went down 58 cents but then closed down at 53 cents on the Future Markets.

There have been two moments in the last week that have made me giddy. The first was when our friends called and posted on Facebook that our Nebraska home was getting rain.

The second was corn prices coming down. As a feedyard owner the price of corn is crucial to our business. It takes a lot of corn to bring you the Grain Finished Beef that your family enjoys.