The Right Storage Decision

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It might not always be the investment that makes every farmer’s heart beat faster, or the key decision on every farm. But admit it, grain storage is usually the first thing you notice about a farmyard.

Maybe they’re new super-sized steel bins, or lines of hopper-bottom bins, or older wooden sheds. And maybe they’re spread around with a few bins on each field, or lined up in intimidating straight lines almost like boys setting out soldiers for a game of war.

We pay attention to grain bins, and I’ve been paying attention to grain storage strategies lately. And I’m not the only one.

My brother has put up four 23,000-bushel bins on his grain farm in west-central Saskatchewan, and on our farm, my husband and I spent most of the summer of 2008 (or at least it seemed that way) pouring cement pads for 4,000-bushel hopper-bottom bins.

Several of our neighbours have brand-new grain baggers, so the above-average 2009 yields around here have left nearby fields strewn with white plastic grain bags stretched out on the stubble (including one that’s been spraypainted with “for a good time, call Rick.”

These are three fundamentally different ways to store grain. Is someone making the wrong decision?

Mark Bratrud, who operates Bratrud Ag Advisory Services out of Weyburn, Sask., doesn’t think so. “Everybody has a different angle,” Mark says. “It depends what motivates each farmer.”

Matching storage with farm business plans

Farmers’ decisions about grain storage look inconsequential next to their investments in machinery and land. If you ask farmers about their most crucial decisions, grain storage rarely makes the list. When you ask about bins, farmers usually talk about up-front costs or resale value.

However, farmers’ grain storage choices also reflect each farm’s production plans, land base, and human resource issues.

Agricultural economist Derek Brewin at the University of Manitoba points out that farm marketing strategies are also linked to grain storage. “Farmers who store grain through the winter need to make sure their increased return covers the cost of that storage,” Brewin says. One danger, he warns, is getting complacent in their marketing strategies because they have "too much" storage.

Large scale bins

My brother, Rob Minogue, claims that his decision to buy 23,000-bushel flat-bottom bins was “just simple economics.” Per bushel, larger bins are cheaper than other options and provide permanent storage.

Rob also argues that these bins fit the times. Back in the ’60s, one of the local farmers had bins that, at the time, were jokingly called “the largest bins in the free world.” These bins held 2,500 bushels, and the owner hauled grain out of them with a truck that held 50 bushels. Since then, field sizes and equipment have grown. My brother can haul 1,600 bushels in one truckload.

Price and modern equipment aside, large scale permanent storage fits with all the elements of Rob’s operation. While he

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