A grain elevator is an agrarian facility with a complex design used to stockpile or store grain. The concept “grain elevator” in grain trade also means a tower with a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor that scoops up grain from a lower level and pours it in a silo or other storage facility.
Grain elevator also describes the whole elevator complex that includes the receiving and testing offices, weighbridges, and storage facilities. You can also refer to it as organizations that operate or control different elevators in different locations. Grain elevator in Australia is simply the lifting mechanism.
Before the existence of the grain elevator, grains were handled in bags instead of in bulk. At that time, Dart’s Elevator was a significant innovation in 1842 and 1843, and it was invented by Joseph Dart, who was a merchant, and Robert Dunbar, who was an engineer in Buffalo, New York. These two inventors used the steam-powered flour mills of Oliver Evans as their model when they invented the marine leg that scooped losses grain out of the hills of ships and raised it to the top of a marine tower.
Many farmers plant corn in their fields in late April and May, and then they harvest using a grain combine. The corn is usually harvested in September, October, or November. When it is harvested, they are dried and stored on a farm, or I’m a grain elevator before they are shipped to mills and refineries.
How does a grain elevator work?
Work begins by bringing together harvest grain from the field and transferring them to a grain cart or directly into a truck that can carry the crop to the grain elevator. Usually, grain elevators are located close to railways or waterways to ship grains after being processed quickly. You can find grain elevators in many rural areas because with them present, farmers don’t have to bother about long distances to haul their grains. You can quickly locate grain elevators because, most times, they are the tallest buildings in the environment where they are found. Some can be as tall as 70 to 120 feet tall.
When you see a grain elevator, you will find the truck carrying the grain pulling into the local grain elevator before it stops on the scale at the elevator to be weighed. The truck operator gets a sample of the grain to test for the presence of foreign particles, moisture content, and weight.
Weeds, trash, stalks, or chewed-up corn are usually what constitutes foreign particles in grains. If the moisture content of your grain is not around 15%, the grains might either end up molding at high percentages or get too dry at lower percentages. When farmers take wet grains to the grain elevator, they pay to get them dried.
The grain is then dumped from the truck to the work floor of the elevator. The work floor is an open, slanted floor where the grain leaves into a pit and will then travel on a continuous belt that has buckets attached to scoop up the grain and then deposits it into silos. This bucket system elevates the grain from the floor to the top of the silo (thus, the whole facility is called a grain elevator). The empty truck will drive back to the scale to weigh the truck again. This will tell the elevator operator how much corn was unloaded.
The farmer will be given a receipt called weight or scale ticket. This ticket will tell the number of bushels calculated as being brought to the elevator. The farmer needs to know the weight of the grain that was dumped. Corn is sold by the bushel, and the standard weight of a bushel is 56 pounds. It is the measurement for weight when buying or selling crops. The ticket will be a record of delivery for the farmer. The scale ticket will show the date, quantity, kind of grain, and quality of the grain being delivered. It will also tell if the grain is to be sold or stored.
Grain elevators were created to hold crops being purchased or available for resale, and it also helps to solve the problem of storing grain. Storage of grains helps to preserve the grains from the elements and allows ensure that they are stored and tracked for temperature and quality. The grain elevator’s internal building carries vertical storage with bins that provide simple transportation of the grains.
Farmers don’t joke about the proper storage of their grains because it goes a long way in determining the profit they will make. If the grains are not stored properly and allowed to remain in the field, it can tamper with the return on investment if molds, birds, rodents, or insects infest them. For the storage of grains, the moisture content is a significant factor because high moisture can cause mold and fungus to invade your crops. When your grains get matured, the moisture content reduces.
Many farmers love to store their grains because it allows them to take advantage of seasonal price gains. You should also know that costs are attached to keeping grains because of this; as a farmer, you should fix your prices based on your storage capacity and the amount you will get after storing your grains.
The storage of grains also allows a farmer to market his crops. As a farmer, you should always sell your crops at a higher price than the current selling price so you can make a profit. When it comes to your grains, consider the facility cost, the interest on grain inventory, storage costs, additional drying of the grain, handling fees, and shrinkage of the grain.
As a farmer, you determine how you want to sell your grains. You can either decide to make a forward contract and sell to a grain dealer whenever you want. What does a forward contract enable a farmer to achieve? It helps him or her to know the specific quantity, price, and delivery date of his grains. But this forward has a disadvantage because if there is a hike in prices, the farmer cannot increase his price. After all, he signed a forward contract. But a farmer can choose to store the grain and sell it anytime he wants to and to anyone. He can sell to livestock feed producers, biodiesel plants, or ethanol plants. With this, the farmer can negotiate prices and sell throughout the year if he has enough grains and chooses to, as long as he can also make provision for the cost of storage and ensure that the grains are good enough for purchase.
When the grains are eventually sold, they may leave the elevator and be transferred to a tail car, barge or truck. What is required to load grains from bins to the loading station is gravity. It is also needed for unloading the grains. Usually, the empty truck pulls onto the scales and is weighed. So, for the empty truck to be filled, it will have to pull under the spout so the grains can be loaded back into the car. To know when to shut off the grain, the trucker a d the elevator operator need to observe the gauges. After this, the truck will pull back onto the scales to get an exact weight and then carry it to its destination.
There are a lot of things involved in agriculture. There are so many steps you have to follow from getting the grain to and from the grain elevator that you should not neglect. Farmers do a lot that most people do not recognize but are necessary for food, fuel, and fiber making.
Why should you use grain elevators?
Many farmers will attest to the fact that the storage of grains is very vital in the farming business. A lot of farmers take advantage of this to make more money.
Farmers store grain instead of selling it immediately to sell it later at a higher price. So, they monitor the grain market and take advantage of a price increase before they sell their brains. This way, they make a lot of money as long as their grains are still in good condition.
Some farmers do not like to store their grains in the grain elevator because grain elevator operators charge them for storage fees, which means that there will be a reduction in their profit.
But some farmers store their grains in the grain elevator alongside other farmers, that is, as a group, to utilize a reduction in the storage price. They do this, so they don’t have to bear the storage cost all by themselves.
As a farmer with the usage of a grain elevator, you will have enough grains to feed your animals with throughout the year. It is very cost-effective for you to store the grains your animals will feed on throughout the year. Animal feed has a short shelf-life; keeping them and using them when needed is an excellent option for farmers to utilize to save them from spending unnecessarily. When your animals are being fed with fresh feed consistently, their productivity and health are improved. It would help if you bought your animal’s feed in large quantities so that you can save yourself of so much stress. With storage, too, you can make your animals feed fresh for them every week so you can eliminate food spoilage and reduce the feeding costs.
Storing your grains in a grain elevator reduces the price of consistently delivering your crops, gets rid of poorly preserved feed.
Since you can’t predict the weather as a farmer, storing your grains I’m a grain elevator will prevent you from making losses because of bad weather or natural disasters.
As a farmer, you should know that just drizzles of rain can damage your crops and lead to moisture damage. So, a lot of farmers dry their grains to preserve them and reduce their moisture content.
Immediately after you dry your grains, you need to keep them in a cool, aerated, and dry place so the grains can be in good condition throughout the year. Your grain elevator will do an excellent job at maintaining the quality of your grains for you throughout the year.
Grain elevators help farmers harvest their grains very early in the season without bothering about a suitable time for storing their grains. When you increase the number of grains harvested and keep them during fair weather, it allows you to reduce the number of crops that last to unfavorable weather. Even when the weather is terrible, grain elevators remain firm, solid, and immovable. Your grains in the grain elevator, too, will not get damaged or affected by the bad weather.
A grain elevator is different from a silo. A lot of people mistake them for each other. They both serve different purposes
Silos are used to store silage–which is fermented grasses that serve as livestock feed. Some silos are used to store wood, cement, soybeans, dry corn, chips, or grains to meet the domestic and export market demand for food, feed, and fuel.
In agriculture, a grain elevator is a vertical building that is usually circular for storing grains. This building is generally permanent.
Sills also look differently from grain elevators. Grain elevators are metal cylinders that carry peaked metal roofs that have staircases or ladders outside of them. They are usually vented, have a silver look with corrugated steel structures more significant in diameter than silos, and have different heights.
Silos are cylindrical, made of concrete, bricks, metal, and wood sometimes. Their upper part usually has a dome shape; they are narrower and taller than grain elevators.
Conclusion
Grain elevators have succeeded in making things easier for a lot of farmers. Farmers take advantage of them to store grains and sell them later at a higher price.
With grain elevators, farmers enjoy a lot of financial gains; they have significant control over the crops they sell, change in weather conditions doesn’t affect them much, and have an all-around supply of animal feed.
As a farmer, you should consider storing your grains in a grain elevator so you can enjoy all the benefits that come with it.