Record yields for 2018 Eastern Washington wheat crop

The first indication that the 2018 wheat harvest has been pretty good for farmers across the northern tier of Washington state is visible to those who travel Interstate 90 near Four Lakes.

There, at the silos of Highline Grain's loading facility are two equally large piles of grain that have no place to stay inside either the concrete towers or steel tanks.

"If we were going to categorize this year, I'd say (it's been) better than average, everywhere," Paul Katovich, CEO of Highline Grain Growers said in a recent interview.

That is a little unusual, he said of Highline's footprint which stretches from Spokane to Wenatchee and above I-90. The east-west reach of Highline is described by Katovich as a teeter-totter.

"It seems like one side does better than the other, rain mainly being the driver of that," he said.

One side tends to get more moisture than the other. That's the norm, except this year, as there was cool weather throughout the spring. "A cool May is the next best thing to a good rain and that is what growers saw," Katovich said.

Other than a frost event or two - and there was one on May 30 and a second June 13 - had those not occurred, "We would have had record or close to record yields in lots and lots of places," Katovich said. All-time records have been set in parts of each area of the Highline system.

"Ordinarily that teeter-totter would give us a clear leader," Katovich said. Consistency was the key word this season. "It's not an across-the-board record crop but there are some areas that are the best they've ever cut on those fields," he added.

"There isn't any one spot that was just a 'gutter-ball,'" Katovich said. And that's what makes this season a little unusual. "Usually, you have some of both."

Yield is not the only positive market force.

Wheat prices now are the best in three years at over $5 a bushel. Specifically, the price at the end of August, after all handling, was $5.25 a bushel. The bid price would be $5.37 with a 12-cent handling fee.

The further away from river transportation, or a main rail line, then prices go down a little bit to the grower because there's more freight involved, however.

"Everywhere right now is getting more than $5 a bushel, which is the highest it's been in a while," Katovich said. That's up from the $4 range a year ago.

The second pile of grain at Four Lakes that currently sits uncovered is "Building elasticity into our model," Katovich said. "It gives us flexibility on the short line(railroad) to move when we need to move when the market may not be willing to allow it," Katovich said.

Simply put, it provides better yield in the wallets of the 2,700 members of the Highline Co-Op which operates 50 elevator sites. The state has about 2.14 million acres of wheat in 2017, according to the Washington Grain Commission.

"Some may get the impression that we're growing and we're something big," Katovich said. "That's not it at all, we're still just a speck on the map. We have just over 100 employees, there's more people at Costco."

The co-op was created in the first place to allow the individual producer to join forces with his neighbors and magnify their individual leverage, Katovich said.

"I happen to be friends with the two largest landholders and two largest farmers in the state of Washington," Katovich said. "Put those two guys together and they still don't have enough leverage to effectively negotiate in the marketplace with global multinational conglomerates."

But the co-op does. They remain pretty much home-grown, like the products they market.

Katovich stressed that the home office for the co-op is not in Omaha, or overseas, it's just down the road on U.S. Highway 2 from most members in tiny - population 1,138 - Waterville.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].