Silo capacity and post-harvest losses
Grain lost after harvest is grain grown for nothing. Ukraine loses a meaningful share of its crop this way every year, and the fix is capital rather than agronomy.
A harvest is not income until it is sold, and between the field and the sale there is a period during which grain can be lost. That period is where a substantial amount of Ukrainian agricultural value disappears.
Where the losses occur
Moisture. Grain stored above a safe moisture content heats, moulds and can be lost entirely. Drying capacity is therefore not optional for maize and is frequently the binding constraint at harvest.
Pests and rodents in inadequate storage.
And handling: every transfer between vehicle, heap and store produces breakage and loss, and old infrastructure produces more of it.
The commercial dimension
Storage is not only about preventing loss; it is about timing. A farmer without storage must sell at harvest, when everyone else is selling and the price is at its lowest point of the year.
A farmer with storage can hold and sell into a better market. The difference between the harvest price and the spring price is frequently larger than the cost of the storage that would have allowed the wait.
The structural problem
Storage capacity is concentrated with large operators and traders, which means smaller farms sell at harvest by necessity and the party with storage captures the timing premium.
That is a transfer of value from producers to intermediaries, effected purely by who owns a building.
What would change it
Financing for on-farm storage and drying, which is exactly the kind of investment agrarian receipts and similar instruments exist to fund. And warehouse receipt systems that let stored grain serve as collateral, so a farmer can borrow against the crop instead of selling it cheaply.
Grain harvested and then lost is a cost paid twice: once to grow it and once to move it. The return on storage investment is among the shortest payback periods I calculate in this country — usually under three seasons. It goes undone for financial rather than economic reasons: the money has to be found before the harvest, exactly when the farmer has least cash.
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