Back Prairie Grains is the official publication of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, North Dakota Grain Growers Association, South Dakota Wheat, Inc. and the Minnesota Barley Growers Association. In addition, you will incur an interest cost on having the money tied up. It's easy to see that holding corn and soybeans in commercial storage can cost up to 4.6 cents per bushel per month for corn and up to 7.2 cents per bushel per month for soybeans.
Interest is a major storage cost.
If you sell rather than store, notes Weness, you can pay off loans and stop accruing interest on them. Even if you owe no money, if you sell the grain you could invest the cash and earn interest. Storing corn in bins you already own is easier to justify than storing at an elevator. These fixed costs include payments of principal and interest, insurance, and property taxes. Thus you will need less price improvement to justify storing grain in bins you already own than you'll need to justify elevator storage or putting up new bins.