MN elevator shut down?

In Too Deep and others in NW Minnesota, rough deal as I assume contracts and stored grain is now in very questionable status this close to
harvest, in a down market?

http://www.agweek.com/business/agriculture/4498750-ashby-mn-elevator-suddenly-closes-amid-allegations-manager-misspending

Paul
Elevator closes

Hey Paul,I drove thru Hutch today and there piling corn outside already! No Idea where it's coming from since nothing around here looks ready to go.

The Brownton facility?

Grain trucks are running 12 hours a day on the county road past me, even weekends, I donno where they are going. The elevator a mile from me seems pretty busy. Lot of folk sweeping out their bins I guess. Probably some contracted grain too.

Was a lot of expectation for grain prices, corn especially, to push up another 20 cents and then the markets went all to heck, I suppose a lot of folk in position to hold grain still have their tail end crop on hand.

They had one bunker about full last year in brownton as well, before harvest. Seems to be a trend. Actually they filled the small bunker by me last year, and didn?t cover it. Instead of the few tenths of rain forecast over night, we got 4 inches that night. Then the pile started to heat up, and so they scooped it all back up and hauled it up to brownton, and blended it with a bigger pile up there. As I understand.

Hopefully it goes better this year.

We all make learning mistakes.....

Paul

The elevator in Ashby, MN... Where my uncle lives and I spent most of my childhood weekends at my grandparents. Too bad the guy decided to embezzle and use the money to go on high-priced safaris (allegedly).

Wow. And I get bent out of shape if I check YT when I'm on the clock. A million bucks on a Cabela's credit card? How do you even do that? I've never hauled to Ashby but my truck has. Wow.

Gotta be bad. The area really doesn't have enough facilities as it is. Ashby is less than 25 miles form me. Very normal for elevators to stop taking grain until they get some shipped. Bottle neck is the rail roads. Buffet (BNSF) makes more money hauling oil out of ND than he does hauling grain.

Lot of folks in this area at least have corn from the 2016 harvest still in bins waiting till they A: have to get rid of it B: prices go up. And the thousands upon thousands of acres in corn in the general area isn't going to help.

Friend has between last year and 2016 very close to 100,000 bushels and he only farms about 1500 acres. About half that is planted into....CORN! He's gotta unload about 1/2 of that to have storage for this year. He's hauling like mad right now. he ain't the only one.

Rick

Seems like the elevator storage places would be required to be bonded since they are holding grain they don't own.

(quoted from post at 04:21:42 09/14/18) Seems like the elevator storage places would be required to be bonded since they are holding grain they don't own.

Click to expand...

Don't know about a bond but the story says that it "might be an insurable loss".

What gets me is in a small town like that, in rural MN, the guy thought he would get away with it?

Kinda like the clown behind this http://www.echopress.com/news/42586...reds-minnesota-police-agencies-vehicle-extras . The dealership itself is the one that caught this in an audit and fully cooperated with the FBI, State and local police. He has sense IIRC copped a plea and went to jail. His dad at one time owned the dealership. When his dad retired he and his brother took it over, built a new building with the brother running the front and Gerry running the back. Don't know the full story but they ran it into the ground and sold out to Nelson Ford right in front of a bankruptcy. Gerry stayed on and the brother moved on. Can't believe Gerry thought he would get away with it......

Rick

(quoted from post at 05:35:02 09/14/18)

(quoted from post at 04:21:42 09/14/18) Seems like the elevator storage places would be required to be bonded since they are holding grain they don't own.

Click to expand...

Don't know about a bond but the story says that it "might be an insurable loss".

What gets me is in a small town like that, in rural MN, the guy thought he would get away with it?

Kinda like the clown behind this http://www.echopress.com/news/42586...reds-minnesota-police-agencies-vehicle-extras . The dealership itself is the one that caught this in an audit and fully cooperated with the FBI, State and local police. He has sense IIRC copped a plea and went to jail. His dad at one time owned the dealership. When his dad retired he and his brother took it over, built a new building with the brother running the front and Gerry running the back. Don't know the full story but they ran it into the ground and sold out to Nelson Ford right in front of a bankruptcy. Gerry stayed on and the brother moved on. Can't believe Gerry thought he would get away with it......

Rick

Click to expand...

One article refers to hunting safaris back in 2011. The business wasn’t that big, sounds like most of the revenue was selling feed and other farm goods. But with revenue of only 1.5 per year, it seems it should have gone bust long ago?

(quoted from post at 06:42:16 09/14/18)

(quoted from post at 05:35:02 09/14/18)

(quoted from post at 04:21:42 09/14/18) Seems like the elevator storage places would be required to be bonded since they are holding grain they don't own.

Click to expand...

Don't know about a bond but the story says that it "might be an insurable loss".

What gets me is in a small town like that, in rural MN, the guy thought he would get away with it?

Kinda like the clown behind this http://www.echopress.com/news/42586...reds-minnesota-police-agencies-vehicle-extras . The dealership itself is the one that caught this in an audit and fully cooperated with the FBI, State and local police. He has sense IIRC copped a plea and went to jail. His dad at one time owned the dealership. When his dad retired he and his brother took it over, built a new building with the brother running the front and Gerry running the back. Don't know the full story but they ran it into the ground and sold out to Nelson Ford right in front of a bankruptcy. Gerry stayed on and the brother moved on. Can't believe Gerry thought he would get away with it......

Rick

Click to expand...

One article refers to hunting safaris back in 2011. The business wasn’t that big, sounds like most of the revenue was selling feed and other farm goods. But with revenue of only 1.5 per year, it seems it should have gone bust long ago?

Click to expand...

We got a few small elevators still left in the area. Only reason they survive is the lack of better facilities. From where I live the closest decent facility as of a just a few years ago is 15 miles. Go east and it's 35. Little one about 8 miles away about the size of the one in Ashby. All the others are closed. So that elevator closing is going to be another problem for the smaller farmers in the area.

I have the idea that the thefts occured over several years. That they were not all at once.

Rick
I'm trying to find out what I can. A nephew works for Cenex there. He hasn't returned calls.

South Central Grain and Energy, a six elevator coop in central/southern MN merged with another southern coop, and shortly before that, sold the elevators in Darwin and Eden Valley. Darwin was bought by a egg farmer, and still buys corn but no soybeans. Eden Valley was sold to a local farmer who doesn"t operate it...maybe planning to flip it? Been sitting empty for several years, very nice facility...guessing over 100,000 bu storage in new bins. Other elevators are 15 and 30 miles away.

OK my nephew doesn't know much of anything other than what was in the news. He knows both the guy and his wife who are the accused. Went to church with em for a while he says.

Guess most of the guys in that area are going to wind up going to Elbow Lake. Problem there is they run out of rail cars pretty fast. Another guy here will get a call from Elbow lake that they are taking grain and he might get 2-3 loads hauled with a semi before they stop taking more. Elbow lake is about 40 miles.

Rick