From the Star-Telegram:

Imagine you keep a couple of rooms of furniture at a local storage facility. Now imagine that it goes out of business and your belongings have been sold to pay off creditors.

A similar situation has played out, though on a much larger scale, in rural parts of Texas over the past two years, when 16 grain elevators -- some full of corn, sorghum, wheat and other grains -- abruptly went bankrupt or failed. The nine grain companies that owned the elevators fell victim to the national economic recession, according to the Texas Farm Bureau.

Hundreds of farmers statewide have been left clinging to their livelihoods as several million dollars in unsold grain became locked inside the storage facilities, the Farm Bureau said. Several farmers lost tens of thousands of dollars, and many more lost hundreds of thousands.

Financial failure of grain elevators hurting Texas farmers