Late Harvest Sows Problems for Farmers

November 1, 2009
By Joe Barrett
The Wall Street Journal

PIPER CITY, Ill. -- Most years, Larry Thorndyke has his corn fully harvested by Halloween. This year, almost all of his 1,400 acres of corn are still in the field, exposing his farm to crop disease, bad weather and a potential financial nightmare.

Photo: Midwestern farmers are seeing one of the latest harvests in recent memory. (Joe Barrett/The Wall Street Journal)

"It's getting scarier. The longer we go, the more mold keeps growing and the more ears fall off," said the 50-year-old farmer, taking a break from steering his combine over dark, wet dirt Thursday, his first full day of harvesting corn this season. "Every day you wait, you lose more money."

Piper City, Ill., farmer Larry Thorndyke says an unusually wet fall is causing one of the latest harvests in recent memory. WSJ's Joe Barrett.

The combination of a late planting season and an unusually cool, wet fall is causing one of the latest harvests in recent memory. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said just 20% of the corn crop had been harvested in the major corn-producing states, compared with 58% on average by this point in 2004 through 2008. Farmers also had brought in just 44% of the soybean crop, versus 88% on average over the past five seasons.

The slowdown complicates life for farmers and threatens to take a bite out of their earnings in a year when net farm income already was expected to be 38% below last year's near-record high.

"Most of the farmers' income is still out there in the field," said Loyd Brown, president of Hertz Farm Management, a Nevada, Iowa, company that manages more than 1,800 farms with some 430,000 acres across the Midwest. "They're anxious to get it harvested and anxious to know where they stand for the year."

Rain is good for growing crops, of course, as long as it stops in time for crops to dry out enough to be stored without rotting. The longer crops wait in the fields, the greater the risks of mold and other damage.

A dry spell never took hold this year, keeping many farmers out of their fields, especially in eastern Iowa and Illinois. Crop losses from mold are starting to hit hard, particularly in the warm Mississippi Delta region.

Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks warned Friday of a potential crisis for the state's farmers if they don't get dry weather soon. Because corn hasn't had a chance to dry out in the field, many farmers are being forced to pay extra to have grain elevators dry their crops.

Over the past two months, futures markets have added about 36% to the price of corn and 17% to the price of soybeans, in part due to the difficult harvest, said Joe Victor, vice president of marketing with Allendale Inc., a commodity-research advisory firm. Corn futures for December delivery closed Friday at $3.66 a bushel.

The impact on food prices isn't expected to be great. Today's crop prices are well off pre-recession highs, when prices climbed as high as $7 a bushel for corn and into the teens for soybeans amid surging demand from biofuels makers and China.

Weather is expected to improve starting late next week, but if the crop isn't in before winter storms start, Mr. Victor said, there could be trouble. "We keep our fingers crossed," he said.

In 1972, snow prevented Mr. Thorndyke and his father -- whose family has grown crops in eastern Illinois for more than 100 years -- from getting to some of their corn until after the New Year. They would begin harvesting around 2 a.m., with the soil frozen solid, and work until it began to thaw. One day, they sank a wagon to its axles in mud. A neighbor brought over cookies to thank the farmers "for the best entertainment they'd had in years," Mr. Thorndyke recalled.

This season, after waiting through weeks of bad weather, Mr. Thorndyke finally started harvesting soybeans last week, bringing in about 500 of his 800 acres before rain stopped him. On Thursday, with his beans still too wet to harvest, he switched to corn.

Normally, corn stops growing in late summer and spends several weeks drying in the field. Once the moisture level falls to about 15%, farmers can harvest the crop without any further drying. This year, many farmers are still seeing corn with moisture in the mid-20% range and higher.

Steering his combine on Thursday, Mr. Thorndyke pointed to a computer screen showing his corn at about 24% -- much wetter than he wanted. Still, he said a neighbor with corn at 32% moisture called him a "lucky devil."

Most of Mr. Thorndyke's crop is locked in at a price of around $4 a bushel. After paying drying fees of about 40 cents a bushel and losing crops to weather and mold damage, he is still hoping to break even for the year.

The late harvest also means he may get a late start next spring. Wet conditions also compact the dirt in the fields, which could hurt yields for years.

"It snowballs," Mr. Thorndyke said Thursday. By 5 p.m., rain had shut the harvest down again. Showers continued Friday, so Mr. Thorndyke went over to his son's house to help remodel a bathroom.

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