Compounding issues lead to grain quality concerns

by | Aug 31, 2020 | 5 Ag Stories, News

State agriculture officials estimate nearly 4 million corn acres and over 2 million soybean acres have been completely destroyed by the derecho.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig last week assessed crop damages in western Iowa. He witnessed damages caused by a host of weather-related events.

“(I) had a chance to see the impact of the drought, which is now growing across the state of Iowa, in addition to the derecho. As we look at this situation, it’s not that we’re not use to dealing with adverse weather conditions. What’s unique is we’re dealing with adverse weather conditions over such a wide area,” Naig said.

“As you look at the intense damage path, from a crop standpoint, we’re talking 3 1/2 to 4 million acres of corn, 2 1/2 million acres of soybeans. The USDA Risk Management Agency gives a bigger number, more like 14 million acres of covered crops in the storm area,” Naig said.

Naig says, “We’re dealing with an unprecedented situation on top of another unprecedented situation; being our COVID-19 supply chain disruption on top of weather events.” Such events have started to compound, causing reason for concern in regards to grain quality.

“Grain quality issues create challenges for use and marketing,” says Charles Hurbugh, professor-in-charge of the Iowa Grain Quality Initiative. He suggests producers with impacted grain reach out to their crop insurance adjuster.

“Crop insurance is at the center of this,” Hurburgh says. “Make sure you have an active conversation with your crop insurance adjuster about how quality will be handled. Quality is difficult to adjust in the crop insurance world because it’s not like volume and price, which have precise measurements and are relatively accepted measurements. With quality, you have representative sampling, testing accuracy, feed safety issues, and a number of other factors that make for complications.”

If you’re planning to harvest this grain, you then need to have a conversation with your market, as many of these factors have a negative impact on end use, according to Hurburgh.