This guide was first published in A weekly journal of agriculture and rural life:

For the fourth time in the past five crop years, corn has gone without rain. Due to the high temperatures, the stocks are already very ripe, so the harvest will start again very early. The first stocks of silage corn have already been chopped.

It is questionable how drought affects cob formation and thus yield. Regional differences are no longer as large as last year. But overall, the signs point to a below-average harvest.

The price of grain corn will be affected this year by high grain and energy prices. This also increases the relative price of the respective wheat feed mixture.

For pigs on liquid diets, CCM is an ideal feed – high in energy and also good for the gut due to lactic acid. But how much can fatteners offer CCM without paying more for feed than using pure grain fattening? Arus farmers see the situation from a different perspective: where do they ultimately get more money from CCM sales or grain corn? Current market prices are hardly available due to lack of trading volumes. Therefore, the “right” CCM price depends more on the operating circumstances.

Our calculation is based on average prices. The calculations act more as a guide. An individual company must calculate according to its own values.

All values ​​in the following calculation are net. A sales tax of 9.5% must be added at the time of sale to obtain the gross price. Accordingly, the higher 19% sales tax for contractors or drying must be considered.

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Is it worth it for growers to buy CCM?

The comparative calculation helps to determine the value of CCM in pig fat. The feed value of CCM is determined by comparison with a mixture of wheat and soybean meal.

Overview 1 shows the comparison of prices of different CCM quality bran with wheat buying prices from €21 to €25/dt. 0.75 €/dt for wheat milling has already been taken into account.

Since the CCM mix requires a higher proportion of soybean meal, the spike in soybean prices has an impact. The basis of the price of soy flour is €55/dt. If the price of soybean meal rises by €5/dt, CCM must be about €0.15/dt cheaper.

Important: In the calculation, we assumed that not the entire spindle is also removed, but only the tips of the spindles. The bigger the shaft part, the lower the comparison price!

CCM is usually procured from the field. Harvesting and storage are then at the buyer’s expense. The higher the yield, the lower the cost of CCM decitone, as shown in Table 2.

After deducting the cost of harvesting and storage, the buyer gets the maximum price he can invest for CCM without the field. The decisive factor here is the price of wheat. If this increases or decreases by €1/dt, the CCM value changes by approximately €0.7-0.8/dt, depending on the dry matter content.

On the other hand, of course, the yield level and quality also affect the price. Table 3 shows the maximum price a buyer can pay for CCM depending on yield, quality and price of alternative wheat. In extreme cases, the range exceeds €5/dt CCM.

Arable farmers: CCM or grain corn?

Bernd Westerfeld, Stefan Leuer, North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture

Ready-to-harvest sellers are wondering what they do better: selling CCM from the field? Or your own harvest and sale of grain corn?

For CCM, the farmer must receive at least his variable costs of cultivation and the alternative earnings he would earn from selling grain corn.

What matters is the price of grain corn this year. 33 €/dt net to be used for the calculation. Depending on yield and quality expectations, the seller should receive at least 4 of the income listed in the overview, either as a flat fee from the field or through the scales based on tonnage.

Drying costs have almost doubled compared to last year due to rising energy costs.

The calculation assumes €0.20/dt for every 1% of crop moisture. Drying follows a normal market scheme to a target value of 15-12% residual moisture. Corn loses weight during drying, not only due to the removal of water, but also due to the loss of organic components. This must be taken into account when converting wet goods with 63% dry matter to dry goods with 85% DM.

This weight loss is determined in a completely different way. Our…