Field warehousing is a plan to store on the premises of the owner the very products on which the owner desires to effect a loan at the least cost possible. The motive behind any field-warehousing arrangement, as far as the storer is concerned, is a desire on his part to enhance access to his credit borrowing. In other words, he endeavours to place his products in a position that will enable him to pledge them as collateral for a loan. Almost without exception as soon as the credit needs passes, the field-warehouse arrangement also passes.”
Placing the products in a credit or collateral position could be accomplished by placing them in storage in a public warehouse, but there might not be a public warehouse in the town in which the owner of the products operates. Moreover, the owner of the products frequently owns or controls a warehouse or storage facility.
The very nature of his business frequently obliges him to have storage facilities nearby his operations. Naturally he wants to use them to his greatest advantage. Again, he may wish to avoid unnecessary freight hauls. Further, he may feel that he can make sales and shipments to greater advantage from his own warehouse facility than from some other warehouse “Field warehousing” as conducted by professional companies is now a well-known device for achieving a security interest in inventory and regulating the extent to which that inventory will be available for use or sale.