By MICHAEL DANNA and BILL SHERMAN            
Farm Bureau News Staff Writers

Originally posted 10/19/2007

BATCHELOR – It’s a blue-sky Monday at the Batchelor Grain Elevator as Joseph
Wells steps gingerly over the top of a truckload of soybeans, pushing a shiny
brass rod deep into the golden sea of beans.

Wells has been working since 7 a.m.,
having probed more than a dozen loads
of soybeans, checking the quality and
moisture content of what’s turning out to
be a massive Louisiana soybean crop.

“I’ve never done this many this early,”
Wells says, inching his way back across
the trailer to the boom stand above the
scale.  “And just look at all those over
there waiting. A lot of them have been
waiting since Friday.”

A half-dozen18-wheelers loaded with
soybeans sit in line, waiting their turn.  
Drivers stand idly by, some snacking on
honey buns, others talking on cell phones.
They’re no doubt talking to their farmers
who want to know when they’ll be returning
to the fields. “I just can’t tell you right now,”
one driver is telling the person on the other
end of the phone, not bothering to mask his
exasperation.

The fact is, the highly anticipated
soybean harvest has all but come to a
grinding halt because the farm infrastructure
is running out of storage space to hold
bumper crops of wheat, corn, milo and now
soybeans. Farmers who have on-farm storage
have their bins filled to capacity, while local
grain elevators like the one here are bursting
at the seams.

“We’re full and we’ve been pretty much full for some time now,” laments Ray
Guidry, manager of the Pointe Coupee elevator.  “This is kind of the perfect storm
of production, price and profit.”

Near record prices for corn, in the wake of increased ethanol production across
the country, combined with bumper crops of wheat, milo and soybeans, which also
saw much higher prices, had Louisiana producers cutting back on crops like cotton
in favor of grain.

“There’s a tremendous amount of grain out there,” said David Bollich, grain
marketing specialist for the Louisiana Farm Bureau.  “It’s got to go somewhere.”
The problem of just where to store all that grain prompted a recent meeting of
about 30 farmers at the Pointe Coupee Farmers’ Co-op, located next door to the
elevator.  Farmers there said part of the problem stems from not only a bumper
crop, but also limited delivery options at the Cargill Grain Elevator port facility
located on the Mississippi River at Port Allen.

“They just don’t care,” said Avoyelles soybean grower J.K. Bordelon, adding that
Cargill, with the largest storage capacity (seven million bushels) of any elevator
along the river in Louisiana, has been slow to meet the needs of local grain
producers who must move their crop out in a timely manner.
























“We empathize with regional Louisiana soybean producers who, in today’s market,
have limited options to deliver their soybeans,” according to the statement issued
by David Feider, of Cargill Corporate Affairs.  “However, we have been able to
accept only a limited number of beans that do not meet export-grade quality, given
current space and transportation challenges at our Baton Rouge facility. Cargill
has long extended to regional bean producers the opportunity to contract their
grain, and we have honored our contracts with all producers this harvest,
partnering with area producers to handle record levels of corn, wheat and
sorghum.  We are doing our best working with soybeans producers in trying
circumstances.”

Those words were of little comfort to soybean producer John Goode, who grew
1,000 acres of soybeans in north Pointe Coupee.  One of Goode’s trucks had just
returned from the Batchelor elevator after waiting nearly 72 hours to dump one
truckload of soybeans.

“The local elevators are just not really equipped to handle the volume that we are
having today and it’s been difficult all the way around.” Goode said.
Goode said he’s seeing yields of nearly 60-plus bushels to the acre, with damage
running only 2 percent.  But everyday those beans sit in the field unharvested, the
damage percentages only go up.

“It’s a great crop,” Goode said.  “Now I’ve got to deliver it.”
BEAN COUNT.  Joseph Wells probes
soybeans at the Batchelor Grain
Elevator in Pointe Coupee as trucks
ahead wait to be offloaded.
Bumper Beans Bound in Bottleneck
“Please get us someone who
can handle all this grain and
listen to what our concerns
are,” said George Lacour, a
Pointe Coupee soybean
producer.

The meeting, attended by
Louisiana Commissioner of
Agriculture and Forestry Bob
Odom, also included state Sen.
Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia,
state Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-
New Roads and Jay Hardman,
executive director of the Port of
Greater Baton Rouge.  While
no one from the Cargill Port
Allen facility attended the
meeting, the company did
release a statement about the
situation from its Minneapolis,
MN headquarters.
BEAN BREAKDOWN.  John Goode at his combine near
McCrea in northwest Pointe Coupee Parish.  Goode,
who also grows sugarcane, increased soybean acres
this year because of price increases for beans.  
Mike Danna/FB News
Mike Danna/FB News
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