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Grain growers

CHS SunPrairie general manager on crops, logistics & facilities

Brad Haugeberg, general manager of CHS SunPrairie, is shown in his office at the cooperative’s main office. Haugeberg has been in the grain business for more than 40 years and as general manager of CHS SunPrairie in Minot since 1997. Eloise Ogden/MDN

Many growers are taking considerable time to decide what crops to plant this season.

“There’s a tremendous amount of indecision yet,” said Brad Haugeberg, general manager of CHS SunPrairie during a March 27 interview.

The day before a CHS SunPrairie board meeting was held followed by an informal discussion.

“I would say that for the average grower he probably has decided on 60 percent of his acres of what he’s going to plant and there’s a 40 percent that haven’t fully quite made that decision yet,” said Haugeberg.

At that time, growers had about three or four weeks before they would have to make a decision.

“We have markets that aren’t the best so for them to try to figure out and look at all the factors and try to forward look as what the outlook can be…,” Haugeberg said.

There’s also issues influencing the marketplace, he said. “Like flooding in the Midwest, the trade embargoes – there’s so many things that can have an influence on the market so I think a lot of guys are going to wait until the 11th hour, then figure out ‘what am I going to plant on that last third of my land?’ ‘

Haugeberg, originally from Max, has been in the grain business for over 40 years. He started his career in Max in 1975 with Harvest State, then spent a large portion of his career in Plaza-Makoti. In 1997 he became general manager in Minot.

In August 1997, Farmers Union Elevator of Minot merged with Harvest States Cooperatives. A new regional division of Harvest States Cooperatives called SunPrairie Grain was formed, now CHS SunPrairie. Harvest States Cooperatives and Cenex, Inc. merged in June 1998, to form Cenex Harvest States Cooperatives, now known as CHS Inc., headquartered in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., according to the CHS SunPrairie website.

Wheat and soybeans are the two big crops in this area, explained Haugeberg.

“We’re going to see less barley acres. Canola could be up,” he said, adding, “Right now we’re seeing more bookings on canola seed than we had last year.”

“These commodity prices at best are break even for growers so it’s a tough decision,” he said.

Haugeberg said there’s a lot of inventory at this time – crops from last year are being stored and haven’t been sold yet.

“We’ve seen the market come back a little bit here recently so we’ve seen some selling pick up a little. We saw $5.75 once this fall and then we went down to $4.75. We’re back up over $5 but there’s still those that wish we could get back up closer to that price we saw earlier,” Haugeberg said during the March 27 interview.

He said the two big topics on many people’s minds are:

– Are commodity prices going to go back?

– Is the tariff war with China going to end?

“I think those are the two topics that are on everybody’s mind right now,” he said.

If the tariff war with China ends, there’s the question: Will it ever be the same?

“I don’t know that it ever can be,” Haugeberg said. He said he thinks there’s some confidence something will get resolved.

But there are questions including:

“Will China start looking at diversifying where they get their products from rather than relying so heavily on the U.S.? They probably will having gone through what they’ve gone through. So it changes things a little bit but at the end of the day consumption keeps going up all the time and we’re always tasked to grow enough,” Haugeberg said.

As of late March, Haugeberg said there are some transportation issues. He said both the Canadian Pacific and BNSF were experiencing issues. There’s been some derailments, including in the West Coast in a tunnel that backed up the railroads quite a bit.

“The flooding in Nebraska and Iowa has washed out railroad bridges and tracks so they’re rebuilding those,” he said. He said the good news is railroads can rebuild in a timely manner.

But, he said, there could be some problems getting fertilizer to the area because much of it is transported on the Mississippi River to this northern tier. If they don’t already have the product, growers were being urged to get a commitment from their supplier.

Fertilizer is delivered by truck, barge and rail. A great deal of it is transported up the Mississippi River to supply crop nutrients to the northern tier, Haugeberg said.

He said the railroads recover faster from floods than navigation on the waterways.

This past year CHS SunPrairie opened a new terminal near Lansford.

“It met or exceeded expectations,” said Haugeberg. “Right out of the chute we projected a certain amount of volume and we’ve met that and exceeded so far. We haven’t been open a full year so we’ll see how the balance of a year plays out,” he said.

CHS SunPrairie cut the ribbon in June on the new 900,000-bushel grain shuttle loading facility just northeast of Lansford along U.S. Highway 83 N. The new 180-acre campus is the 10th location for CHS SunPrairie in north central North Dakota, according to CHS SunPrairie information.

No new CHS SunPrairie facilities are being planned in the area but Haugeberg said some upgrades are being planned for the Bowbells facility.

Years ago, he said trucks were small and growers typically went to a nearby location. Today, trucks and operations are considerably larger and where the growers go with their products.

“Today it’s price and velocity. It’s because they’re running huge operations and they can’t afford to have a truck sitting in line so they want to be able to get in and get back on the road and get back to the field timely. So sometimes their decision where they go is where can I get dumped the fastest and get back out to the field?” Haugeberg said.

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