Storage problems will surface throughout the Midwest and Midsouth this year. Even before harvest officially begins, all involved in agriculture know that storage will be a problem in some areas. That's because, as most of you are well aware, many farmers have a big portion of last year's crop in the bin waiting for decent prices. Those prices never arrived. The grain stayed put. This year's crop has to go somewhere. And this year's promised record (and early) corn harvest is going to be a bin-buster. As of mid-July, USDA found terminals and elevators 46 percent full nationwide.

Normally, bin space is not a problem. MFA has the capacity to store 27 million bushels of grain. To see our commitment to the grain industry, look no further than our newly renovated facility at Higginsville in west-central Missouri. The Higginsville MFA Agri Services Center features an 800,000-bushel storage capacity, a mile of railroad track that holds 54 cars, a high-capacity grain dryer and a 20,000-bushel-per-hour receiving and loading capacity. System-wide, MFA has the ability to handle large volumes of grain quickly. But for that to happen efficiently, railroads and barges have to run on schedule. Railroads, specifically, do not have a good track record during times like these. And the barge industry has an uncertain future. Plus, there has to be a demand for grain for us to move the grain quickly. With last year's crop added to this year's bounty, supply just might overwhelm demand.

As members of our grain department advise those looking for profitable options, smart marketers focus on net profit, not price. The costs of storage and interest until prices rise can subtract more from your bottom line than an initial lower price. Always remember that highest price does not always translate into highest profit. And in keeping with that sentiment, those looking to hold grain until next year could very well lead to the same problems next year. Look for and take price opportunities to sell.

But there's a larger, more significant problem underlying this issue. We have to convince our elected representatives that investments in the infrastructure of agriculture are in the best interest of the United States. Unfortunately, today's society is placing greater value on wildlife and recreation than on the basic infrastructure of the nation. The very real result of lack of investment could easily be loss of agriculture as a viable U.S. industry. I'm not overstating the case.

Consider what is happening in South America, our largest (and the fastest growing) competitor. Just two years ago, Argentina built a river superhighway. In 2,200 miles of the Parana River (their equivalent of our Mississippi), there is not one single lock. Argentina updated plants and grain terminals along 250 miles of the river. In all, Argentina spent $650 million to upgrade the barge and navigation system on that river. Argentine farmers do not have the three-day waits to move 15 barges that we experience on the upper Mississippi River. Argentina's improvements created efficient deep-water ports.

In contrast, grain movement is slowing in the United States. In the face of opposition from would-be environmental types, we can't even get 60-year-old locks and dams updated on the Mississippi, despite the fact they were constructed with a 50-year expected life. Every politician and businessman tells us that we are in an international market, that our success depends on our ability to compete. If that's the philosophy, then we must be given the tools to compete. Without continued investments in our transportation infrastructure, U.S. farmers are placed at a severe disadvantage as foreign countries increase their commitment to developing agricultural export markets.

In Brazil, an agricultural group has invested heavily in a barge system on that country's Madera River. As the National Corn Growers Association reports, Brazil is now shipping soybeans for storage on a new floating elevator on the Amazon River. The group is also actively looking at establishing yet another port on the Amazon to further lower that country's transportation costs in the agricultural-cost equation. When, not if, they move forward, how will we compete? Rather than focus on ways to efficiently move our products to market, we in the United States are focused on how best to manage our major rivers for wildlife and pleasure boating.

As South American farmers continue to adopt the efficiencies of technology, their exports will continue to increase. Right now, say the Corn Growers, their costs of production are catching ours. For years, we have had them beat on transportation costs. Our advantage was in being able to deliver agricultural products to deep-water ports quickly, efficiently and cheaply. We're rapidly losing that advantage. Tim Burrack, a grain farmer from Iowa and board member of the National Corn Growers Association, eloquently summed up all of this in testimony this spring before the U.S. House of Representatives:

"We are standing at a precipice. Is the United States about to surrender another industry to our competitors? If so, the tragedy is not that we as a nation couldn't compete, but that we lacked the foresight to make the investments to hold on to our grain export markets."