Corn and soybean futures have hit multi-year highs, which means dry beans will need to compete for more acres in 2022.
Matt Stawowy, trader with Steele & Company, says that since December, the attractiveness of planting dry beans has declined.
“The soybean index in particular had really started to climb,” he says. “We’ve seen a pretty steady escalation over the last six weeks that’s caused growers to reevaluate soybeans, corn, and spring wheat in North Dakota, which is a much less labor-intensive crop. It tends to draw away from dry bean acres.”
Now the challenge is to encourage growers to plant more acres with contracts or encouragement that markets will be available.
“We don’t anticipate burdensome carry stocks on 2021 production,” says Stawowy. “That should create some opportunities for growers and dry beans for the months forward.”
Price remains the biggest incentive. Michigan’s plentiful crop last year was offset by drought in the Minn-Dak region, making for an adequate supply. Stawowy says logistics has been the biggest drag on the market.
“Our problem is getting our product to the market in a timely way,” he says. “It’s not just a domestic problem. One of our biggest problems is the offshore market—in some cases we’re waiting for containers. We may generally wait a couple of weeks, but now we’re waiting six, eight weeks. We’ve had some shipments that have been rolled since November.”
For Stawowy’s full comments, check out the March 3, 2022 edition of the MAT Podcast in the player below or on all podcast apps.
