Nov 05, 2013
Hundreds of Silo Bags still full of Corn in Mato Grosso
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Due to a lack of adequate storage space and a record large corn crop in 2013, many farmers in Mato Grosso invested heavily in silo bags as a way to store their corn. The open-air piles of corn are gone, but hundreds of these bags are still full of corn in the state while farmers wait for improved corn prices or the government to purchase more of their corn.
Farmers in eastern Mato Grosso used the bags the most because that is the region of the state where the grain production has been increasing at the fastest pace and the deficit of storage space is the greatest. If the corn was put into the bags at the correct moisture, the grain can stay in the bags for up to a year and a half.
Each bag can hold up to 180 tons of corn or four or five big dual tandem trucks. The bags themselves cost R$ 1,000 to R$ 1,500 (approximately US$ 450 to 680) and the equipment to load and unload the bags costs about R$ 50,000 or US$ 22,700. The cost of using the silo bags is estimated at about R$ 1 per sack of 60 kilograms or about US$ 0.20 per bushel.