# The US National Grain Reserves Are Apparently Gone



## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

This came through one of my groups on facebook. I have my ideas about it, but I wonder what some of you think, especially those who have a background in farming.

Is this a hysterical person? Is this person right on?

I traveled this summer through wheat country. I saw grain bins unlike anything I had ever seen before and also had an awareness that there are communities in the country that are so prosperous that they do not qualify for Head Start, when they had in the past. I am talking farming communities.

Or is it that the reserves have shifted from government holding them, to individual farmers holding them? And coops holding them?

The Mormons raise their own wheat and have silos full of wheat as well. Originally, they were supposed to have 7 years of mainly wheat stored. I believe they have helped more people in the past 7 years than they had before, from what I hear at their storehouse.

http://www.patriotnetdaily.com/the-us-national-grain-reserves-are-apparently-gone/



> The US National Grain Reserves Are Apparently Gone
> Posted by :Ken Jorgustin On : October 14, 2015
> 
> The US National Grain Reserves Are Apparently Gone
> ...


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

Overall farm commodities are at very low prices now (like most commodities). I would think that many farms who have the ability to do so are holding onto their grain in the hopes of prices going up before they sell. Farmers have been using this tactic for many many years. Sometimes they gain and sometimes they lose with this scenario depending on what the prices do. Wholesale buyers of grain do the same thing. At any time there are hundreds of grain bins around the country that are full and are owned by farmers or wholesalers. I admit I know nothing about the US National Grain Reserves (only that I hope we have some).


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

hiwall said:


> Overall farm commodities are at very low prices now (like most commodities). I would think that many farms who have the ability to do so are holding onto their grain in the hopes of prices going up before they sell. Farmers have been using this tactic for many many years. Sometimes they gain and sometimes they lose with this scenario depending on what the prices do. Wholesale buyers of grain do the same thing. At any time there are hundreds of grain bins around the country that are full and are owned by farmers or wholesalers. I admit I know nothing about the US National Grain Reserves (only that I hope we have some).


I briefly met a group of young men from Texas this summer, late July. One had been on a combine crew in Texas and Oklahoma. He was done with that for the summer. Since I have been around combine crews, I was interested. He told me that all the stuff they harvested was sold before it left the fields. Having just seen all the bins further north in June, I had a realization that this is probably a common thing: the grain in the south gets sold first, and at a great price, and by the time the grain further north gets harvested, the prices have fallen. I figured that is why there are so many grain bins further north; farmers wait for better prices.

The idea of so many grain bins up north is also another reason to head north in a SHTF situation, unlike the guy in The Road, who headed south. While I am trying to eat less grains and gluten, a bushel of wheat can feed a family for a while.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

weedygarden said:


> ... He told me that all the stuff they harvested was sold before it left the fields. Having just seen all the bins further north in June, I had a realization that this is probably a common thing: the grain in the south gets sold first, and at a great price, and by the time the grain further north gets harvested, the prices have fallen. I figured that is why there are so many grain bins further north; farmers wait for better prices.
> 
> ...


I wonder if he meant Sold or "sold", almost all large farmers these days "sell" most of their grain months in advance of even harvesting it, let alone actually delivering it.

While price has always been a big reason to hold grain for sale, a bigger consideration these days is simply capacity. Hauling grain straight to an elevator or other buyer during harvest time is typically far too big of a bottleneck to account for most of the harvest. Harvest is much more condensed in Northern areas, so there is a particularly large surge of grain but everywhere has similar issues. If you think about it, if the buyers and elevators could accept all the grain during harvest, what would they do the rest of the year, particularly in the north. In days when every little town had an elevator or three, and a mill, and some feedlots, it was a little bit different but to some degree it is just the nature of harvest (especially in a one crop/year situation).

Personally I am not a big fan of government reserves and their "price stabilization"(manipulation) in general.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

In the doomer fiction I write I sometimes mention all the grain bins and corn cribs scattered across much of the USA. Those bins are 'hiding' in plain sight and have a lot of food value stored in them. Many starving people would pass right by them without a second glance. 
Of course the grain inside would be unusable to most people. No way to grind it and if ground no knowledge of what to do next. No knowledge of 'sprouting' grain. For them it would be like being thirsty when out on the ocean "water everywhere but not a drop to drink".


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

Is our USA trade imbalance, like our multiple trillions of dollars of debt to China, being paid off by things of intrinsic value? Since so much of our manufacturing has left this country, those values have disappeared and the things left here that have intrinsic value are farm and ranch goods, properties that have raw minerals and petroleum potentials. So, as the article that weedygarden posted mentioned,"when the USDA decided to convert all that was left into its dollar equivalent.", seems to fit into paying of debts, but at what cost? Add the drought problems into the mix and food storage starts to look a bit spooky and so it's rather fitting that we are here on Prepared Society, striving to learn what we can about survival for our family and others we love dearly. There is just so many bad things that are being done in the name of "Globalism", and so many people swallowing the misinformation our government and mainstream media is feeding us, that truth be known, not only our country but throughout the world, overall, we are in deep manure without a clue of what to do, unless we learn what to do and have the courage to act upon what we know should be done. Normalcy bias is a huge crutch, perhaps you've heard people say, "Things may be bad, they'e been bad in the past, but, things always seem to get better." Thing is this country has never been so deeply in debt and it's not getting any better, our government just voted to raise the debt ceiling by billions of dollars. Where do you suppose the debt to GDP ratio will be in 5 to 10 years at the levels it's been going at in the last six plus years.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

I do know from talking with a friend whose family is in the cotton gin business that the price of cottonseed oil has certain peaks and valleys that are fairly predictable. It's all based on supply and demand which varies depending on the time of the year and the size of the crop that year and/or in previous years.

I suspect the same holds true for most foodstuffs.

I have a couple of cousins who are retired farmers. A lot of farmers and nearly all corporate farms use commodity options to lock in prices for future delivery. This allows them to minimize their price risk much as they use crop insurance to guarantee their yields. Thus their income is fairly well known within a range before planting and that leaves the farmer/corporation to only have to control their costs. My cousins did buy into a grain silo where they would store a portion of their crop looking for higher prices. I know they were successful at first in timing the market, but I haven't talked to them in years about it to know if they're still even partners in it. 

The large food companies have their own silos so they can buy when prices are cheap and store it until they need it. A lot of certain crops like soybeans go mostly overseas, and most of those crops are already sold or grown under contract.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

hiwall said:


> In the doomer fiction I write I sometimes mention all the grain bins and corn cribs scattered across much of the USA. Those bins are 'hiding' in plain sight and have a lot of food value stored in them. Many starving people would pass right by them without a second glance.
> Of course the grain inside would be unusable to most people. No way to grind it and if ground no knowledge of what to do next. No knowledge of 'sprouting' grain. For them it would be like being thirsty when out on the ocean "water everywhere but not a drop to drink".


Probably the most common exception would be wheat, it doesn't require any processing to be rather decent food. A traditional eastern European dish is Kutia, which is essentially just boiled wheat with some stuff added for flavour. Now, I guess not very many people outside of "ethnic" communities might know this, but it would probably be figured out before long, hungry people will eat all sort of things they shouldn't let alone unprepared grain.

Up here in the north, particularly Canada but south of the border too, peas are a rather common crop. All the varieties can be used without any processing and are pretty hard not to recognize if anyone has seen the dried ones in the grocery store. Some places up here lentils are extremely common (Canada is by far the largest exporter in the world), but the ones in the store have typically undergone processing.

One thing to keep in mind about those government reserves is that they cost a lot of money to maintain. Grain is not like gold, it is perishable to varying degrees, vulnerable to a huge variety of pests, not particularly dense, etc. Even if the reserves are just on paper, there is going to be all kinds of overhead, administration, fees, etc. If the reserves are physical, well that is another story entirely, buying different types of grain, maintaining storage facilities, constantly rotating out old crop with new, etc, etc. A government agency would surely spend millions and millions on such a project, and in the end they would have to distribute it somehow.

Anyways, bulk grain has a lot of calories and protein for the $$$ value, a bushel of wheat has more than enough calories to feed a person for a month and goes for as little as $5, field peas and lentils aren't much different.


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## HardCider (Dec 13, 2013)

when farmers contract the price of their grain, technically it is already sold before it even matures. If the price plummets they make out like bandits but if the price skyrockets before harvest they can lose out big time.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

cowboyhermit said:


> Up here in the north, particularly Canada but south of the border too, peas are a rather common crop. All the varieties can be used without any processing and are pretty hard not to recognize if anyone has seen the dried ones in the grocery store. Some places up here lentils are extremely common (Canada is by far the largest exporter in the world), but the ones in the store have typically undergone processing..


 I understand that farmers in North Dakota have started growing lentils. When it comes to storing beans, they are an excellent choice, IMHO. They can be cooked in half an hour. They can be made into soups or stews, ground into flour, or cooked, made into veggie loaf or patties.



cowboyhermit said:


> Anyways, bulk grain has a lot of calories and protein for the $$$ value, a bushel of wheat has more than enough calories to feed a person for a month and goes for as little as $5, field peas and lentils aren't much different.


Mormons based their food storage on wheat for decades. They still advocate it, but their members are not as dutiful as they used to be about it. Fast food has had an impact. It is not like many things that people will sneak to eat and have it disappear when someone thinks they are storing it, like cheese, beer, or cookies! Mormon churches would order loads of wheat and members would load up large barrels of it. If kept cool and dry, it can last almost forever, and still sprout. I have met Mormons at the LDS store house who have barrels of wheat they bought 30+ years ago, and they make bread every week with it. I am not sure why, but there are some men who have taken that chore on. It may be because of the labor to grind the wheat, knead the dough, and etc.

During the 30s, my mother's family ate wheat for breakfast. They would clean it in the evening, soak it overnight and cook if in the morning. A bushel of wheat for their family of 9 lasted a month for breakfast. They also bought beans in 50 pound bags.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

cowboyhermit said:


> One thing to keep in mind about those government reserves is that they cost a lot of money to maintain. Grain is not like gold, it is perishable to varying degrees, vulnerable to a huge variety of pests, not particularly dense, etc. Even if the reserves are just on paper, there is going to be all kinds of overhead, administration, fees, etc. If the reserves are physical, well that is another story entirely, buying different types of grain, maintaining storage facilities, constantly rotating out old crop with new, etc, etc. A government agency would surely spend millions and millions on such a project, and in the end they would have to distribute it somehow.


The way I understood that these types of programs work is the owners of grain silos, oil tank farms, etc. receive compensation from the government for participating in the various programs.

So a granary with a capacity of say 200,000 bushels might agree to keep 10,000 bushels on hand at all times under the program. It wouldn't be the same 10,000 bushels but rather a rotating minimum reserve as the silos are filled and emptied during normal business operations. There's an upfront cost to the owner to buy the initial reserve (which might actually be borne by the government), but then he's compensated for participation for as long as the program continues. That 'reserve' can be rotated among different silos on site as maintenance needs arise so maintenance costs are irrelevant as far as the government program is concerned. Similarly, the overhead costs are borne by the owner of the granary as part of their normal business operations. I'm sure there's inspectors that come out to periodically verify the reserve levels, but that's about it as far government costs other than the cost of the personnel to process the payments under the program.


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## Resto (Sep 7, 2012)

Factor in that "Family Farms" owned by American Citizens are quickly becoming a "Thing Of The Past". Here in Yuma AZ Ag is 24/7 365 all year AROUND. Most of the Farming is done by Multinational Corporations. I have one friend here with over 8000 Acres(Homestead passed down). He just raises Hay. All his Hay is sold before bailing and it ALL goes to China. He has Contracts so he doesn't even own the Hay. The Wheat here is the Same. The Family Farms that I was raised working on in IL, mostly went under in the Late 80s. The Banks took the Land and the Japanese Corps bought the Banks and got the Land. Now they Farm it with Mexicans. I wonder how much Farm Land and Crops in the US belong to Foreign Corps. I hear China has been buying up Farms, so I guess the Chinese Govt owns some of the Food that you think is yours. Didn't see that coming did you? DC let it happen. Remember why there was such a thing as "Farm Aide" That wasn't the US Govt. Think Cargill, Monsanto, Sakata, Gowan. Those are the companies that Farm here in Yuma. On top of that. Few Kids want to Farm these days, they go off to College on Daddys Money. Then Guess what happens to the "Family Farm", same with Cattle Ranches in Northern AZ.


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## simplepeasant (Oct 26, 2015)

That's because there was a really good stand of corn all the way from ND to TX. Not much diversified farming anymore.


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