Connection Summer 2018 | Page 13

WHERE DOES YOUR CORN GO FROM THE ELEVATOR? T By Lindsey Bowers his month I’ve been evaluating our sales and studying volumes sold to different markets. Our grain sorghum year in and year out is sold at the Port of Houston or Corpus Christi for export. The three main buyers in the past have been Louis Dreyfus, Cargill and ADM. This year, a major change of hands is occurring as Lansing now has the contract at the Port of Houston instead of Louis Dreyfus. However, Lansing has been trading in our area for the last five years. We have since estab- lished a relationship and are not anticipating this to greatly change the dynamics. While grain sorghum markets are very predictable in respect to the players, corn markets are not. This year, the market for our corn took an unprecedented turn, and United Ag itself became our number ONE customer. We moved more than a million bushels through the bagging plant and mixing plant this past year. While we were our number one customer, we were not our number one market. The chart below is a general breakdown of primary markets, and though we aren’t always exactly sure of the end user, this should be fairly representative of where last year’s corn crop ended up. The coming year is expected to present many unique challenges. From our sur veys, we estimate grain (corn and grain sorghum combined) acres to be down 30 percent to 35 percent, and with the intense dry spell the crop endured we expect yields to be below average com- pared to the above average crop last year. From what I hear, this de- scribes our area and south to the Rio Grande Valley. The demand for corn in south Texas has not changed much from the previous year, but demand for grain sorghum remains questionable. At the time I am writing this article, I only know of two ships sold. With all of these factors considered, it leads me to believe that we will become a corn deficit area this year and will have to wait and see what happens with grain sorghum. UA its own best customer thanks to bagging plant & mixing plant 13