[Mr. Lucky]

The price of corn today is just about where it was a year ago. My guess is that these guys bet the farm on a price swing that didn't occur (the penalty for which is bankruptcy).

[Philo-Junius]

What killed them was that they locked themselves into long-term corn hedges as corn approached historic highs. Their overall balance sheet is still positive; the point of the bankruptcy seems to be to get out from under the hedges.