JIT and plugging the holes of an empty pipeline:
     My impressions here are that end users have been just squeeking by with grain delivery needs and have little delivered ahead.   Trains were waiting by  to load far in advance of farmer deliveries to empty out the elevators here as soon as enough new corn and beans were delivered to fill them.  If it were not for Corn imports from South America, Southern U.S. new crop being shipped right out of the field, large amounts of milo and 2013 wheat substitutions being fed and some extra processing plant shutdowns, the corn pipeline would have been dry for a month.

Is your Co-op trying to make profits for farmers or on the backs of it's members? 
   It seems now that corn buyers here are lined up with low-ball bids expecting product to roll in at any price they set.   The Multi-store Co-ops especially are low balling the market just expecting patrons to subsidize the Co-op rather than the Co-op gaining a better price for it's members.
All the while there seems to be such a demand to ship corn imediately that they "are encourageing" everyone to sign a DP contract and are assessing a 15 cent PENALTY below their POSTED -.12c basis prices if you want to place the corn in open storage.   The whole point of farmers cooperating to build a central storage facility to store their crops together and seek better prices appears to have been hyjacked.

How much is an appropriate buy-sell spread for a Co-op owned by producers?
     The price to buy corn is over $5 but to sell one is only offered $4.25 (or 4.10 to store).   These multi-location Co-op conglomerates have their prices set at their main office and have taken in very little corn and few beans near me.   There is a single-location closed member type Coop that has local farmer-director oversight that is drawing business from 50+ miles that has been offering positive basis and very reasonable drying charges between .01 and .03c per bu.  They have shipped out several trains from their one location and have half a million bu piled in an outside bunker already.   They are capitalizing on the need to quickly meet the immediate needs of endusers who are running hand to mouth.   There might be only one truck in line at the local branches of the multistore Co-op while there are 30 semis in line at the single store where they busily dumping a truck every 45 seconds.

Is it time to burn corn again?
    The price doesn't match reality -  $4.25 for 390,000btu is cheap.   14% moisture corn has 6,950btu per pound or 389,200btu per bushel according to a chart I've had since 2000.  Demand is sure to outpace expectations if these prices keep up.  Gasoline has only 125,000btu per gallon and is currently running 3.45 here.   Corn stoves became popular the last time there was such an imbalance here as well as other crops.  These prices are not reasonable and demand/usage numbers will eventually reflect this IMHO.