Can you negotiate rates with grain merchandisers or brokers ? I can"t !!!! !!!!

Windsmith, I have been impressed with almost all of your posts and respect your input.......until today. You are so, so wrong. Agriculture is like any other business and EVERY other business in this country tries its best to be as profitable as it can and you fault farmer's for doing just that? This is ludicrous. Really, truly think about what you have written here. If I sell corn today to the local elevator for 4.oo a bushel and wish to buy it back today they will charge me 4.35. Are they also greedy? Do you know how little corn is in a box of corn flakes and yet when the price went to 7.00 the headlines blamed the price of corn for the price increases although this amounted to .02 cents per box. Prices went up more that .02 cents per box. Are they also greedy?

And in regards to the ethanol deal, I don't disagree that ethanol subsidies are wrong and have artificially inflated the price of all grains but oil is also subsidized, wind energy is subsidized, etc....

Just rethink your statements and I am not trying to began an argument. Have a good day, sir!

 

It is called marketing.....many farmers can hold one years worth of crop on their farm storage, and try to sell it when the price is most favorable to them. Prices are usually at their lowest at harvest time when the supply is high. It is simply supply and demand....no conspiracy, no karma, and the lowest prices in 3 years per the WSJ article.

 

Not trying to point the finger so much as stimulate discussion and thought. Have the rates paid to the grain haulers increased at the same rate as the price of a bushel of corn? If so, then I'll sit down and be quiet. If not, then perhaps the grain haulers need to start making some noise here.

 

No, they have not kept pace at all. I would also predict that travesty has also occurred in ALL lines of trucking. Many are doing today what they did several years ago for the same money. Is that right? I suspect the load of Fruit Loops has more value than it did ten years ago yet the rate is the same or certainly not kept up to the rise in the cost of consumer goods.

Grain hauling is no different than running a dry box. If the rate isn't there one should not haul it. The problem arises in the fact that someone else will haul it. Also, with the increase in the size of farms in recent years, many farms have their own semis and there is less grain to haul for those trying to make a living out of it.

 

What something is worth doesn't change what it costs to haul. Unless of course it requires special insurance, permits, endorsements, etc.

The price to haul a steel coil is going to be the same even if steel prices double tonight.

 

The hopper isn't nicknamed the "welfare wagon" for no reason. If you wanna make money at a hopper buy a BIG one and haul by products

 

No the rate we get has not increased with the price farmers are getting. The ######## about what we get to haul it goes down when the price is high though. But when the price is low like it is now our rate is the same.

 

This is a perfect example of people commenting on something they know nothing about. There has never been much money hauling grain but you can make a living.

The price of grain has nothing to do with what it cost to move it from point a to point b.

Ethanol has little to do with the price of grain....the byproducts price is a whole different story.

To the original question...yes you can negotiate the price. It's that thing about being a business person driving a truck. Running a hopper is about understanding the whole business not just what's going in your waggon.

 

That is peculiar as when government pushed ethanol program with new regulations coincidentally doubled the price of corn in 2007.
https://www.farmcrediteast.com/~/me...ks/March 2013/March 2013 - Grain Outlook.ashx
Granted, that is just one factor & both corn/ethanol are subsidized markets via gov't. At which point everything becomes clear as mud.
I used to sell fertilizer/seed/chemicals up to 2007 & all those costs doubled/tripled at this point as well.

As far as freight rates on hoppers. Farms have grown in size over the last 20 years to the point where a greater majority have their own hopper/class 8 truck(s). When not running it for their own needs, they will run them to move grain from elevators to the end user/buyer. Cannot imagine freight rates going up with this scenario.