Published 3:15 pm Thursday, May 13, 2021
Washington hay exporters and farmers are hampered by continuing container and truck driver shortages.
“A lot of the hay that’s sold has a market to go to, it’s just having a hard time getting off the farm,” said Shawn Clausen, a Warden, Wash., farmer and past president of the Washington Hay Growers Association.
Shipping can be delayed for up to three months, with cancellations and re-bookings, he said.
“It’s been an absolute logistics nightmare for these export companies,” Clausen said, pointing to a truck driver shortage and higher fuel prices. “It just keeps getting worse for these exporters trying to move this product. They bought it at a fair price last fall, they thought they had it all lined out.”
Shipping and trucking companies are raising prices or exporters are having to offer more incentives, wiping out their margins, he said.
Quality of the hay isn’t affected by the delay, as long as it’s properly stored, Clausen said.
“One problem is you cannot make up time, in a factory where they process the hay,” he said. “They can only get so much production per day. Lost time is lost revenue.”
Some companies will have some “wiggle room,” if they can get the containers, Clausen said.
“New crop is coming and they’ve got all this money still invested in old crop that should have been delivered (and) they should have been paid on,” he said.
Exporter delays in payment get passed on to the farmer, Clausen added.
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service reported Washington on-farm hay stocks totaled 220,000 tons, up 38% from last year. May 1 stocks represent 8% of 2020 production.
In Idaho, hay stocks on farms on May 1, 2021, totaled 410,000 tons in Idaho, down 16% from a year ago. May 1 stocks represent 8% of 2020 production.
In Oregon, on-farm hay stocks totaled 290,000 tons, down 27% from 2020. May 1 stocks are 10% of 2020 production.
Clausen isn’t certain the NASS numbers are accurate for Washington.
“I’m not sure I believe those numbers, that there’s that much hay out there on the farm,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s as strong a carryover as they’re saying.”
Old crop large squares of alfalfa hay bring $155 per ton in the Columbia Basin.
With the high price of Midwest soybeans and corn and drought conditions, Clausen expects demand for feed hay to increase.
Prices have increased about $10 to $20 per ton in the last two months, he said, adding that the industry is in price discovery mode.
“I see the bottom of the market coming up … and I notice the top price is bumped up,” he said. “I think it still has room to move.”
