Producers Blog

Darin Beavers (DSM, Region 3 – Western Nebraska)

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful holiday season. As usual, I regret eating as much as I did when I had told myself I wouldn’t, but I never listen to my own advice and am now miserable!

As I look back at the past year and at the challenges we have faced in this area, the biggest one that comes to mind is that we had encountered one of the biggest drought years that we have seen in many years. This year, one of the biggest challenges we are going up against are our commodity prices. At one of our  local elevators in this area, at one point this past year we could have sold corn for $7.56 a bushel and  soybeans for $15.55 a bushel. Recent cash closing prices were $4.00 on corn and $12.62 on soybeans. The lower commodity prices have definitely slowed down the decision making of a lot of our producers. I talked to a friend of mine that works for a larger retail company and he told me that normally at this time of the year they were 85%-90% sold out of their input products and this year they are 25% sold.

With that in mind, it will be very critical that we put together a complete package and place the right products on the right acre for our producers to have the best chance for a maximum return on their investment. Feel free to give your local Producers Hybrids District Sales Manager or Producers Hybrids Sales Agronomist a call to help you out with the tough decisions that you may have on your farm.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and great upcoming new year!