WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

General Comments Markets were quiet overnight but started to pick up steam this morning when world financial markets rallied sharply higher. The rally in f...

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) ceased to exist as a monopoly single-desk seller this week. It was the last of the single-desk government-sponsored sellers...

With all the hubbub over record crop prices and food inflation, we almost forgot to check in on the Federal Reserve's Wednesday meeting where the Federal O...

Disingenuous and Absurd Don't look for a cordial settlement when it comes to the issue of granting a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) waiver, as requested las...

Indian Soymeal Imports Seem Likely As I wrote on Tuesday, the Indian government is very concerned about the high price of domestic soymeal and the impact i...

General Comments For the second time in two days, markets were disappointed by the lack of specific actions by central banks to combat spreading economic s...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

PNTR: Congressional Democrats still refuse to schedule or vote for permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) for Russia, and Republicans refuse to vote for i...

The scorching heat of June and July, along with the scarcity of meaningful rains, has caused a drought over more than half of the 48 contiguous states. Unf...

The War Within It is no longer food versus fuel but food versus food in the debate over continuation of the ethanol mandate amidst the drought. Senator Cha...

Russian Grain Market: 25-31 July 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS The market trends last week were the same as the week before, with prices continuing to grow but...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

General Comments Yesterday it was noted that a pronounced level of profit-taking could become evident in futures contracts for the next week. Such activity...

Corn The old crop corn market did not suffer any big changes during the last week. There were a couple of sellers still willing to see demand out of Uprive...

General Comments The recent decline in trade volume for the the December 2012 corn contract is probably indicative of traders' waning interest in expanding...

Controversy today heightened over the House Republican leadership's decision to move the farm bill process via a one-year extension of the farm bill. Many...

While USDA will have the more definitive word on this year's U.S. corn crop with its 10 August WASDE, estimates from private analysts are shrinking the cro...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

India Considering 10 Percent Export Tax on Soymeal The Indian Ministry of Agriculture has proposed imposing a 10 percent export tax on soymeal for at least...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The Egyptian government announced that the final amount of its wheat purchases from the local market is at 3.8 MMT, up slightly f...

Ethanol Politics The U.S. drought is putting the heat on both crops and the biofuels mandate. Livestock groups asked the Environmental Protection Agency (E...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Drought Is Inevitable, Overall Rainfall Deficiency Remains at 22 Percent "Drought is inevitable, and the situation in August may not improve," said a farme...

A week or so ago we wrote about how farmers will not suffer significant financial losses because of the drought. In fact, it is extremely likely that net f...

General Comments Markets opened much stronger than expected Sunday afternoon and continued to maintain that strength through the night and into today. Corn...

Tomorrow the House Rules Committee will meet to consider a rule for a one-year extension of the 2008 Farm Bill that "with certain modifications and excepti...

General Comments Markets started very tentative again yesterday afternoon following another day of sharp losses in the soy complex. The selling dried up qu...

Back on 31 May WPI updated its world wheat production table and talked about how world wheat supplies were tightening. We wrote that there were still some...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea is quiet since import demand in the major destinations is very slow. Black Sea wheat remains nominally the cheape...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Game of Chicken over Russia Republicans and Democrats are playing a game of chicken over passage of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) for Russia. U.S...

There is a lot of discussion about the possibility of a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) waiver this summer should, say, the August WASDE, come out with a sig...

The destructive U.S. drought of 2012 grabs all of the headlines, but it is not the only drought being inflicted on an important grain producing region of t...

Meatless USDA Says Livestock "Wastes Resources" As if having a secretary who seemlingly plans to jawbone the markets into believing that the July WASDE sti...

Soybean Export Sales Higher Than Expectations Today's USDA export sales report showed U.S. exporters sold more soybeans and soymeal in the week ending 19 J...

Extremism Deserves the Law Slander: The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is making a frontal attack on Monsanto by running billboards in Washington that...

General Comments Traders apparently were impressed today by the big green blobs that were shown by weather radar. The green blobs indicate where precipitat...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments Grain and soy prices began a rebound in overnight trade after the very sharp price break with which markets began the week. The rebound co...

Corn Because of bad weather conditions in the United States and their subsequent effect on corn crop conditions, CBOT continued its rally. The CU12/CZ12 sp...

Russian Grain Market: 17-24 July 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Weather Conditions Because of the lasting drought, a state of emergency has been introduced in th...

Farm Bill Intrigue The Senate has had its say on a 2012 Farm Bill, but on the House side negotiations are hot and heavy over whether it can even pass a sim...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

It is late July and here we are again in the U.S. crop forecasting season. During the next few weeks we will hear numerous predictions of the size of the c...

Insensitive Ethanol Rhetoric While it is still possible that this year's U.S. corn crop will be sufficient to satisfy all users, there is a growing list of...

U.S. Soybean Crop Condition Continues to Deteriorate Yesterday's USDA crop condition report indicated the overall condition of the U.S. soybean crop contin...

News Updates As crops in many countries -- from the U.S. through Southern and Eastern Europe -- have been affected by poor growing weather, grain prices ha...

One of the issues looming over the congressional schedule, budget and the presidential election is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. These taxes are set...

General Comments It was more of the same -- "down and dirty" grain and soy markets. Yesterday's steep declines set up bearish technical signals that no dou...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Japan Trade Deals Like U.S. agriculture, EU agriculture is hopeful for a trade deal with Japan. EU officials anticipate that a free trade agreement (FTA) w...

General Comments Grain and oilseed markets were supposed to open higher Sunday on another very hot and very dry weekend across the U.S. Corn Belt, but that...

The Grain Complex: Situation Grim But Under Control Though there are many who would want the government of India (GOI) to ban exports of grains and oil mea...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) released the House floor schedule on Friday, 20 July. The farm bill was nowhere to be found. This means that...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

The hard red spring wheat tour is scheduled across the Northern Plains this week. The only problem is that the spring wheat harvest started last week and t...

Markets are trying to take a breather from the super rally. We are also hearing another round of "bear" talk, most of which is garbage. Here are some of th...

Ag commodity markets obviously are on a bull tear that is driving food inflation, but that high level of agri-food inflation may be masking some of the inf...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea milling wheat market was sharply higher for the sixth consecutive week. The offers in the FOB market are difficult to find, but...

General Comments The weather market today intensified again with no rain and very hot temperatures in store for most of the central and western Corn Belt f...

Drought, Ethanol and Economy Respondents to WPI's online survey leaned a bit pessimistic on the economy (see graph below). Meanwhile, the drought may not p...

Corn The week started out with a lot of demand for Argentine corn at -40 CU for August and September shipments, but only a few sellers were willing to push...

This has been a tough nine-month stretch for derivative industry regulators. In just about the time they had dealt with the fallout from one major scandal,...

Rainfall 26 Percent Below Normal in India's Key Soybean Area Information released today by the India Meteorological Department indicated that the cumulativ...

General Comments It has seemed inevitable since early July, but today it happened. CME September corn set a new record high for corn futures of $8.1675. Au...

No Ethanol RFS Waiver There have been rumors that an ethanol waiver is in the works because of the drought situation and skyrocketing corn prices. We previ...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Pre-Emptive Ethanol Action Scuttlebutt is that at least part of the ethanol industry may decide to request a temporary waiver or a temporary lowering of th...

Trade Amendment Free-for-All The U.S. Senate Finance Committee markup of trade bills today reflects a lot of pent-up political anxiety, much of it misdirec...

General Comments It has begun to feel as though we have been trapped in a drought-driven market since forever. Of course, that is not true. However, it is...

Russian Grain Markets: 11-16 July 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvest Update On 16 July the Russian Ministry of Agriculture lowered its harvest forecast to a...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Last Friday (see WPI 13 July) we wrote that it is up to the House Republican leadership to devise a strategy to deal with scheduling the farm bill. Here's...

News Updates On the new business side of things, there is little or nothing to report this week as buyers are staying out of the market in the hopes that p...

General Comments We suppose today's market was the drought version of "Turnaround Tuesday." Instead of running 20-30-40 cents higher like Monday's market d...

We apologize for raising the subject of the U.S. drought again, but these days what else is there to discuss? Simply put, the severe and ongoing drought ac...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Soybean Condition Declines, But Not as Much as Corn Yesterday's USDA report on the conditions of U.S. soybeans and corn indicated the condition of soybeans...

Trans-Atlantic Differences In considering a Trans-Atlantic free trade agreement (FTA), one has to assess the impact of the divergent views on many issues b...

General Comments Markets opened much stronger than expected Sunday afternoon. The following statement from a private weather forecaster accurately sums up...

Monsoon Continues to Lag; Contingency Plan Needed After the spurt of rain in the past week (5-11 July 2012) the monsoon was 1 percent above normal, but the...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

There are a lot of policies and political factors weighing in on the 2012 Farm Bill. These include spending levels for the nutrition programs, the structur...

The drought across the U.S. Corn Belt is getting worse, not better. Weekend rains were far more scattered than expected and the 10- to 14-day outlook looks...

By now, there can't be anyone involved in agriculture who is not aware that the crop production situation in the U.S. has undergone a quick and extreme tur...

General Comments Markets of every sort were stronger today with financials posting big gains on somewhat better-than-expected news from China and strong U...

Here is a rundown of the amendments adopted by the House Agriculture Committee during its markup on Wednesday.As indicated by the number of voice votes, no...

Milling Wheat The milling wheat market in the Black Sea is extremely firm with very limited volume offered in the export market. Russian wheat nominally re...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

General Comments In overnight trade and again during the day session, it was a battle between technical bears and weather-driven bulls. Although technical...

Farm Bill Livestock Amendments A few key and non-key livestock related amendments were adopted yesterday in the House Agriculture Committee's farm bill mar...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Winning without Trying U.S. aggies are astonished and pleased while the owners of a handful of worn out U.S.-flagged ships are baffled and angry over the t...

To badly paraphrase Shakespeare, these are the days that try men's nerves and wallets. We refer to the nerves and wallets of everyone throughout the agricu...

Most of the attention yesterday by the trade press about USDA's July supply and demand report focused on corn. The 20-bushel reduction in USDA's yield esti...

General Comments "Buy the rumor, sell the news" is a fairly common reaction to important reports from USDA, and it certainly applied to today's market. Mar...

Corn South American corn premiums continue to drop, staying at -25/-30 CU for August/September. Some trades were reported at those levels, while several in...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

The bullish tone of USDA's July WASDE surprised many observers. USDA lowered its projected corn and soybean yields and production more aggressively than ex...

Policy Impacts of Drought Today's WASDE report from USDA, with its sharp cut in corn yields, is having several important tangential policy impacts: Ethan...

Russian Grain Markets: 3-10 July 2012 Grains and Products As of 9 July 2012, Russia produced 8.3 MMT of grains with an average yield of 2.59 MT/ha. Accordi...

News Updates As prices continue to rally for all grains, oilseeds and protein meals, export buyers are staying as far away from the market as possible in t...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Soybean Condition Worsens, But Can Rebound With Good Rains Yesterday's crop condition report indicated the condition of the U.S. soybean crop deteriorated,...

Dragging Economy Down Last week's U.S. employment report was more than just a bummer for President Obama; it prompted a wave of negativity on the economy a...

General Comments 'Twas the day before the July WASDE and futures trading was dominated by a Turnaround Tuesday and pre-report profit taking mentality. The...

As the House Agriculture Committee convenes its farm bill markup tomorrow, there is some recent data about farm-based perspectives on the bill that is inte...

We are just three weeks into summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and to put it mildly, the summer already can be classified as highly unusual for all things...

General Comments What more can we say about these markets, other than that we are in a full-blown weather market in the U.S. with some help from more adver...

The Need for Biotech in India Many experts, including those in the private and public sectors, believe that Indian farmers and consumers would be better of...

USDA will release its WASDE updates this Wednesday, 11 July, at 7:30 a.m. This could be one of the more interesting supply and demand reports since back in...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Drought Impact on Ethanol December corn continued its daily leap, heading ever closer to $8.00/bushel. Muktadir Rahman of Capital Economics says that if th...

Day Late and... After years of talk, the UN Food & Agriculture Organization has an initiative to develop a common standard for measuring livestock agri...

General Comments Markets were weak in the overnight session and that weakness followed through until the close at 2:00 p.m. Outside market factors were bea...

As Gary Blumenthal wrote last night, the House Agriculture Committee released its version of the 2012 farm bill, called the Federal Agriculture Reform and...

Wheat, corn and soybean prices soared this week as crop condition ratings showed much greater declines than expected in last Monday's weekly report. This w...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Brazil Raises Corn Crop Estimate, Keeps Soybeans the Same Brazil's crop supply agency (CONAB) today raised its forecast for the 2012 Brazilian corn crop by...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Corn Corn basis in Argentina continued to drop during the last week. Shipments for 15 July, August and September are offered at -15 CU, a 45-cent discount...

Whispered RFS Changes Nearby corn settled at $7.73 today and December at $7.08, implying to some that the new crop is around 145 bushels per acre, not the...

Having endured four days of 100-degree Fahrenheit temperatures without electric power, and of course without air conditioning, as a result of the powerful...

Russian Grain Markets: 26 June – 2 July 2012 Harvesting Updates GRAINS AND PRODUCTS As of 4 July, according to the Russian Agriculture Ministry, Russia har...

General Comments There were two signs of official concern over slowing economies from different parts of the globe today. First, China's Central Bank dropp...

Beef Drought Looking at the cattle section of the table above (Livestock and Poultry Inventories), we see a huge increase in overall cattle receipts. USDA...

Here is a snapshot of some key ethanol and biofuel issues. China Drops DDGS Anti-Dumping Case China late last week announced that it is dropping its invest...

The Future of the Americas’ Ag Dominance Africa and the former Soviet Union have agricultural potential, but factors favor the Americas as continuing...

Big New Crop Soybean Sale Indicative of Buyer Concerns about U.S. Crop Yesterday USDA reported that an exporter last Friday or over the weekend made a sale...

Tutti Frutti TPP While USTR denied U.S. Congressional Chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) "observer" status at this week's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...

General Comments The need for ample soil moisture during corn pollination, combined with the decline in soil moisture levels from abnormally dry to excessi...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Egypt's change of power will have no effect on the financial institution's plans...

Tomorrow night will see the usual array of Independence Day fireworks displays across the U.S. (except where they are cancelled due to heat, extreme drynes...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Higher Feed Prices Affect Margins for Small Poultry Farmers Corn prices in the state of Andhra Pradesh reached a high of $232/MT, while soybean meal reache...

General Comments Weather, weather, weather. It was a super hot weekend across nearly all of the U.S. The East Coast, especially the Washington, D.C. area,...

With Congress adjourned for the Independence Day recess, it's worthwhile to provide an update on the political landscape against which the farm bill will b...

We haven't had a true 4 July weather market in years. In fact, it has probably not been since the last widespread mega-drought in 1988. That particular dro...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

EU Eyes TPP A Reuters report indicates interest by both Brussels and the Canadian dairy, poultry and egg sectors in how Ottawa handles the start of Trans-P...

General Comments Much of today's market excitement was not the result of the USDA's quarterly stocks and acreage numbers; it was the result of yet another...

Today's long-awaited quarterly stocks and acreage revisions did contain a few surprises, but the surprises were not significant enough to outweigh the ragi...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea is firmer without much activity. Russian wheat is about $10 higher versus last week, and French and U.S. wheat pr...

China Aids Mercosur China wants more competition amongst food suppliers and greater food security. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's swing through South...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Farm Boy Media Darlings Here's something lighthearted for a Friday afternoon. The Peterson brothers, Greg, Nathan and Kendal, three young farm kids from Ka...

U.S. Soymeal Exports Sales Now Ahead of Last Year Today's USDA export sales report once again indicated U.S. exporters made large export sales of soymeal l...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Paying Twice A House Agriculture Committee markup of the farm bill is scheduled two weeks from now, and while consideration by the full House remains uncer...

General Comments Grain and soy futures market closes across the board are red, but not by large amounts. The losses are generally single digits. Traders we...

In his policy comments last Monday (see WPI 25 June) Gary Blumenthal very briefly touched on the summary report issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) o...

Pork Gap Looking at the slaughter chart above, we can see that hog slaughter numbers are down again, having pretty steadily come in below 2 million head si...

Russia PNTR Likely The White House and Congress continue to tussle over the passage and possible inclusion of the so-called "Magnitsky" bill in the grantin...

Corn Corn basis in South America continues to be weak. July shipments at the beginning of the week in review were buyable at +30 CU (or -10 CN with the CN/...

General Comments Volatility reigned in grain and soy futures trade as the market exhibits an increasing nervousness over USDA's acreage and stocks reports...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Russian Grain Markets: 19-25 June 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting and Harvesting Updates According to the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, the target are...

"A Mediocre Farm Bill," featured in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, opined on the Senate's version of the 2012 Farm Bill. Just for fun, we took a...

G-20 Ag Plan In contrast to the Rio+20 meeting last week, G-20 members meeting in Mexico agreed to an actual plan for boosting food security in poor countr...

China Proposes FTA with Mercosur China's President Wen Jiabao yesterday suggested that China and the countries of the Mercosur bloc consider negotiating a...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The Egyptian government has announced that the budget for 2012/13 wheat purchases has been set at $2.65 billion (EGP 16 billion),...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

General Comments This is what a weather market looks like, and there is no doubt that we are in one. Yesterday's weekly crop condition reports dropped corn...

As Mike Krueger noted yesterday, among the 1 June quarterly stocks estimates that USDA will release this Friday, 29 June, the quarterly corn stocks number...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

USDA will release two important reports on Friday morning, 29 June. The first is the quarterly stock estimate and the second is the revised planted acreage...

This week will be one of Washington's busiest of the year. Congressional members are facing a Saturday, 30 June deadline on the highway bill. Potentially m...

Wheat Procurement Increases, Exports Catching Flak India reaped 90.23 MMT of wheat in the 2011/12 season. According to new records, wheat procurement has r...

Justice Hears "Voices" In 2010 the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department orchestrated four field hearings to receive the griping from small and inef...

General Comments Markets started very strong in the Sunday evening session and built on that momentum right through today's session. Note that the open out...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Milling Wheat The weather in Russia remains one of the main concerns in the Black Sea region. Most operators are now evaluating the Russian wheat crop at o...

With the Senate's passage of its farm bill on Thursday, attention has been turned to the House. House Ag Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma) expres...

Every week seems to be a key week in markets these days, but next week has the potential to be especially important for several reasons. Markets can't ig...

General Comments It was a very quiet day from a news perspective. Following yesterday's debacle, financial markets were steady early but then gradually gai...

Notes on Farm Bill Amendments The U.S. Senate's consideration of various amendments to that body's 2012 Farm Bill deserves some commentary.Biotech Labeling...

It seems that traditional Chinese medicine is primarily concerned with harmonious interaction of the body with the outside world. Herbs and foods are perce...

Based on observation and experience over many years, we have concluded that people involved in grain futures markets generally prefer bull markets to bear...

The Senate today passed its version of the farm bill by a vote of 65-34. The following is a description of the bill and a list of amendments and how they w...

General Comments Rains fell in sometimes heavy amounts over the Northwestern Corn Belt with Nebraska, the Dakotas, western Iowa and Minnesota the primary b...

Diplo-Speak The WTO Agriculture Committee met yesterday and discussed various members' perceived indiscretions by other countries, with questions posed and...

Farm Bill: What Didn't Happen to Livestock The Senate completed action on the farm bill today. The biggest news for the livestock sector is what didn't get...

Big Jump in U.S. Soymeal Export Sales Today's FAS Exports Sales report indicated U.S. exporters last week sold 258,700 MT of soymeal for shipment in 2011/1...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Corn Despite weaker premiums, the Argentine corn market was very quiet during the last week. On the selling side, premiums were downgraded 5-8 cents a bush...

Farm Bill Update The Senate slogged through more amendments today, ending certain payments to millionaires and capping marketing loan gains for all farmers...

General Comments Overnight trade in grain and soy futures found soybeans enjoying support from more non-commercial buying while grains traded in mixed fash...

Russian Grain Markets: 12-18 June 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting and Harvesting Updates Wheat harvest forecasts are getting worse as the dry weather con...

General Comments Markets had plenty to trade on today. There were the pro forma encouraging statements from the G-20 meeting in Mexico that eurozone leader...

Sustainability of Gab Fabs The Rio+20 Environment Conference is set to begin in its namesake Brazilian city tomorrow. The event is concurrently described a...

Dryness in Midwest an Increasing Concern for Soybeans If there ever were a year when the U.S. needs to harvest a large soybean crop, this is it. After the...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Scarcely a summer growing season goes by in the U.S. without some sort of adverse weather somewhere over major crop areas threatening to damage crop produc...

After two hours of debate on the floor, the Senate today began voting on the 73 farm bill amendments. The following is an update as of 5 p.m. ET.The Grassl...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE According to the Egyptian government, local wheat purchases are getting close to the 3.5 MMT target. The total cost of these purc...

General Comments The Greek election verified that Greece does want to remain in the eurozone. The problem is there was no clear majority, and attempts to f...

ARC Honey Attracts Bees Historically, agriculture has been presented as a highly risky enterprise, though statistically it fares better than other business...

GOI Increases MSP The government of India (GOI) last week announced new minimum support prices (MSP) to jumpstart agricultural activity for the 2012/13 sow...

U.S. farmers appear to be headed for another very strong year financially. The table below shows that while net farm income might slip some from 2011, it i...

The Senate was back in session today at 3 p.m. without a resolution on the farm bill and scheduled to vote on a federal judicial nomination. Meanwhile, all...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

In one week of farm bill consideration, 247 amendments have been drafted and the Senate has now voted on two. Both were voted down: one to turn the Supplem...

USDA's U.S. corn yield projection of 166 bushels per acre is in trouble. The simple fact is that it has not rained across much of the Corn Belt since late...

General Comments Instead (or in addition to) being worried about Sunday's Greek election and weekend weather updates, today's corn, soybean and wheat marke...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea milling wheat market is under heavy pressure in sympathy with the U.S. and EU futures' markets, but without much activity. Farm...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

The Argentine Liaison Board (SRA, CRA, FAA and CONINAGRO) on Tuesday announced the end of its seven-day national strike, but farmers threatened to stage mo...

Rural Campaign An article in the Capitol Hill news outlet Politico declares the USDA-issued document "Strengthening Rural Communities" to be "Obama's play...

India Boosts Soybean Minimum Price by 33 Percent The government of India today announced big increases in the minimum price guaranteed to farmers for their...

General Comments Frankly, we get tired of talking about weather and Europe's debt crisis all of the time, but realistically, when it comes to grain and soy...

Economists and analysts of all kinds like to talk about the interconnected globalization of the world economy. Those of us who focus primarily on markets a...

Gestation Stall-Free Pork Supply A number of fast food operations and grocery retailers have announced that they will demand a pork supply chain that is fr...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Russian Grain Markets: 5-11 June 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS MY 2011/12 Grain Exports Russian grain exports in MY 2011/12 amounted to 27 MMT, including 20 MMT...

Aggie Litigiousness Needed Within hours of Greenpeace labeling JBS as an intentional purchaser of cattle raised in illegally forested areas, the meatpackin...

General Comments Weather is always key to every summer growing season, and the 2012 summer growing season is no different. We are in a weather market. As e...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

The June WASDE was released this morning at its regularly scheduled time of 8:30 a.m. ET. This made it the first WASDE to come out amidst the CME's expande...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Economy Threatens CAP Reform Some in Europe say that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Reform as presented by the Commission is now dead. The austerity...

Few Changes for Soybeans in USDA WASDE Report As expected, USDA made relatively few changes in today's supply and demand report. It did raise U.S. soybean...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE As mentioned last week, the Egyptian government reported it has purchased 2.6 MMT of local wheat and is getting closer to its 3 M...

As of this afternoon, there are more than 100 amendments filed on the farm bill with more than 200 in the drafting/planning stages. Committee leadership co...

General Comments For the first time ever, grain and soy futures markets were trading this morning (both electronic and pit) when USDA released a major repo...

The Senate has entered its second week of farm bill debate. As of this morning, more than 90 amendments were filed. The Committee leadership will meet to d...

General Comments It was a night and day of extremes in the agricultural markets. Last week trade was dominated by struggles between bullish weather forecas...

Indian Corn Exports An ample amount of grain, especially wheat, barley and corn, combined with slow consumption by both the domestic industry and neighbori...

Slow Movement Moves The "Slow Food" movement was begun as a protest to the building of a McDonald's restaurant in Spain. It was followed by the "Slow Money...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

USDA will release its June WASDE and winter wheat production updates at 7:30 a.m. CT tomorrow morning. Few major changes are expected, but the biggest chan...

Milling Wheat The milling wheat market in the Black Sea is under pressure in sympathy with U.S. wheat, but with very limited activity. The exporters are no...

CFTC Funding Issue A House Appropriations Subcommittee has slashed funding of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by 12 percent for 2013. CFTC Commiss...

General Comments The midweek eurozone euphoria faded overnight on a downgrade of Spain's banks; financial and currency markets were back to the same old st...

As the 2012 Farm Bill enters its second day of deliberations on the Senate floor, there is a new splinter on the dairy front. Senator Robert Casey (D-Penns...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

The markets have been so dominated by all of the bearish events in Europe, as well as the slowing expansion in China, that any fundamentally bullish news a...

Farm Bill The Senate farm bill yesterday cleared a procedural challenge by passing a cloture vote that allows the bill to come before the whole Senate. The...

Russia WTO Accession The office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has reminded Capitol Hill that its top legislative priority this year is removal of...

The Argentine Liaison Board last week announced a seven-day national strike, which began Tuesday, 5 June and will end Wednesday, 12 June. The Liason Board...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments The Chinese government cut its one-year interest rate 0.25 percent for the first time in nearly four years in what is seen as a serious ef...

Trading in the CME's new Black Sea wheat futures contract began yesterday, 6 June. With this contract, CME aims to attract hedging volume from Black Sea re...

India's Soymeal Exports Decline in May India's exports of soymeal in May totaled 142,588 MT, 19.2 percent below the 176,819 MT exported in May 2011. Since...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Russian Grain Markets: 29 May – 4 June 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates as of 30 May 2012 Grain auctions from the National Intervention Fund did n...

General Comments Earlier this spring, corn and soybean futures markets became worried about tight old crop supplies that were being eaten into by strong do...

U.S. Soy Exports to Colombia Expected to Recover this Fall Last week I made a quick trip to Colombia to participate in a celebration of the implementation...

The Senate is taking up the 2012 Farm Bill. Food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will be a major issue. As we ha...

General Comments G7 finance and banking officials held a conference call to discuss the eurozone's debt and banking problems. Results from the call, if any...

Tales of Woe The foibles and folly of following various food studies and the machinations of politicians. J.P. Morgan Chase and Financial Regulation J.P. M...

It is the most basic of truisms to say that differences of opinion are required to make any market work successfully. The ups and downs of market prices re...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The Egyptian Government announced that it is allocating another $166 million for local wheat purchases, increasing the available...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Soybean Oil Price Sinks on Rising Soybean Inventories and Softer Oil Demand China's oils and fats market is facing continued supply pressure, with soybean...

Soda and Nutrition Programs USDA policy forced New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's imposition of a 16-ounce maximum cup size for soft drinks. Although...

This past weekend there were some important changes to extended weather models that are worth noting. We are not meteorologists; we do, however, follow sev...

The Senate tomorrow returns from its Memorial Day recess for floor business. It is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a wome...

General Comments Following last week's major collapses in financial and commodity markets, the world was expecting Armageddon today. That didn't happen, al...

India's Economic Slowdown: Time for a Stimulus The numbers are finally out; the Indian economy grew a dismal 5.3 percent in the last quarter (January-March...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

General Comments There was no joy in the world's financial markets today. It started with a lower-than-expected China Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) numbe...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea wheat market remained very quiet this week with no significant trades reported. The weather in Southern Russia improved as the...

Senators James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) and Christopher Coons (D-Delaware) have led the effort to create a study group to examine which Renewable Fuel Standard...

Small Thought Soda Policy Kerri Toloczko of the Institute for Liberty, an organization that must be quite busy since it claims to be "dedicated to combatin...

In the world of commodities, a lot can change in a decade. That certainly has been the case with the changes in global soybean crushing locations. In the l...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Weather has not been friendly to world wheat production so far in 2012. Dry conditions have impacted wheat crops in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Western...

Farm Bill Animal Welfare Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced legislation that reflects the new animal welfare standards negotiated between t...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments Traders appear to have gone into month-end mode by organizing and squaring up some of their positions. Potential evidence for that assumpt...

When it comes to supply/demand analyses for corn, ethanol has taken over the top spot on the demand side of the equation, at least temporarily. Back in 200...

ARC Market Impact FAPRI, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri examined the Senate Ag Committee-approved farm b...

Wheat Old crop wheat in Argentina is almost gone. With only a few sellers left who still have export licenses and not many more to be released, sellers are...

Indian Economic Slowdown Definite According to a report from the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), India "may not yet be he...

Russian Grain Markets: 23-28 May 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates as of 23 May 2012 Grain Auction Results from 23-24 May 2012 Russia held another...

General Comments The gloom that has enveloped the eurozone in recent weeks spread further and deeper today. The Greek situation is on hold until after the...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Brazil Non-Compete The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) released a long-anticipated report on Brazil's agriculture sector. It concludes that despi...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The first leg of Egypt's presidential election seems to be off to a decent start. There have been only a minimal number of compla...

House Farm Bill Conundrum The U.S. Senate is likely to pass a 2012 Farm Bill, but it is far less certain that the House will take up the measure. According...

General Comments It was soybeans versus the grains in today's market action. Grains fell rather hard and soybeans stayed in positive territory, although th...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its estimates of projected spending under the proposed Senate farm bill. According to CBO, enacting the bill...

Japan's Soybean Imports Forecast to fall to 43-Year Low Japan's Oil and Fat Importers association on Friday predicted Japan's imports of soybeans this year...

Looking at recent market action, one might argue that bulls have the soybean market and bears own the corn market. Maybe this is an obvious conclusion beau...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

The Senate farm bill was enrolled yesterday, setting the stage for June consideration on the Senate floor. The bill underwent some changes from the version...

Argentina Faces the Hammer The EU formally requested WTO consultations with Argentina over the latter's non-automatic import licensing and its requirement...

General Comments It was a relatively peaceful trading day today compared to what has gone on the past several trading sessions. This concludes the first fu...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea wheat market is roughly unchanged despite the volatility in the U.S. and the EU. The weather in Russia improved this week as th...

We have just completed the first week of trading the markets 21 hours per day. It was another extremely volatile week with prices staging a free-fall Tuesd...

General Comments World markets were mixed today. Asian stocks closed lower as early manufacturing data from China supported views that its economy was slow...

Farming and agriculture in the U.S. has always been a major subject for congressional legislation. We are not exactly sure how to prove this, but it seems...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Beef and Cattle There are signs that the bow-wave from high feed costs and the Texas drought have worked its way through the system. First of all, after...

Big Spread between "Official" and "Informal" U.S. Dollar Rate in Argentina Argentina has always thought in terms of dollars, and for the past several decad...

U.S. Soy Exports to Colombia Should Increase The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (FTA) was implemented on 15 May. Under the terms of the agreement, Colo...

Nibbling at the Edges The G8 summit last week emphasized the need to boost food security in Africa, and while the U.S. is adding private sector investment...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Russian Grain Markets: 16-22 May 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates as of 16 May 2012 Grain Auction Updates as of 17 May 2012 As of 17 May, the tot...

TPP Smoke Equals Fire At last week's TPP negotiations in Dallas, USTR floated language that allows health authorities to adopt regulations against tobacco...

General Comments Eurozone leaders are trying to come up with some arrangement that will save Greece and the other debt-ridden countries, promote European e...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The UAE this week announced that it would be investing up to $3 billion in agricultural projects in Egypt over the next five year...

General Comments A sell-off in grain and soy markets after the recent big rally has been overdue, and a "Turnaround Tuesday" was the perfect opportunity fo...

We have been away from markets for a few days, so we missed a lot of the most recent price volatility. As we return and try to get up to speed again, here...

Aid Overhaul Former USAID administrator Brian Atwood, who now leads the OECD's umbrella Development Assistance Committee, says that 30 percent of the world...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

The International Sugar Trade Coalition (ISTC) recently weighed in on the Senate Agriculture Committee's farm bill with a letter to the Senate. According t...

Soybean Plantings in China's Heilongjiang Province Down by 20 Percent Reports out of China indicate farmers in the country's Heilongjiang province have red...

NDRC Announces New Hog Price Control Plan In an attempt to reverse a continued slump in China's hog market, the National Development and Reform Commission...

The leaders of the G8 countries -- sans Russian President Vladimir Putin -- met over the weekend at the U.S. presidential retreat, Camp David. The group di...

General Comments Sunday afternoon's weather models stuck with the "heat dome" forecast, which gave us sharply higher trade through much of the night. Corn,...

I often long for the good old days when the commodity futures markets opened at 9:30 a.m. and closed at 1:15 p.m. Life was much more comfortable and certai...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

India's Wheat Dilemma The government of India (GOI) is in a bind. While the good monsoon season has boosted wheat production, it also has brought forth a h...

Grain and oilseed markets have been all about the weather the past few days, and that has trumped weakness over the last couple of weeks caused by more con...

General Comments U.S. equity markets have been fixated all week with the Facebook IPO that took place this morning. It was huge success with the highest ev...

For the past two days, the House Ag Committee Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management has held hearings on Title I of the farm bill. A...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Farm Bill Predictions Crop Insurance: A farm bill passed by the House is unlikely to either cap crop insurance payments to farmers or tie them to conservat...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea market is firmer in sympathy with the rally in Chicago and Matif. However, the rise of the physical market in the Black Sea is...

Corn Of the total 3 MMT export licenses granted by the Argentine government, about 1.3 MMT were released during the past few days. Demand expected premiums...

Indian Government Urged to Raise Soybean Price Guarantee An advisory panel to the Indian government is urging the government to raise the guaranteed price...

Since J.P. Morgan last week announced that it had sustained a loss estimated at over $2 billion in its Chief Investment Office (CIO), the business press ha...

Gestation Stalls and Pizza Parties Last week we reported that a number of companies -- from Safeway to Burger King -- have moved away from pork originated...

General Comments Late yesterday the CME withdrew its 22-hour trading day proposal. Instead, it substituted a new proposal for a 21-hour trading day with el...

Farm Bill Bedfellows Populist farm groups like the National Farmers Union (NFU) typically back Democrats, but it is House GOP leaders who are echoing NFU c...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments Grain and soy markets cast aside a number of generally bearish outside influences today to focus on various weather concerns and ongoing s...

Russian Grain Markets: 8-15 May 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates as of 11 May 2012Russian Grain Export UpdateAccording to First Deputy Prime Minis...

Dumbing Down Trans-Atlantic Goals EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht says a free trade agreement with the U.S. must include increased access to state-lev...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Senators Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) have been preparing an amendment to the Senate Ag Committee's farm bill that would cap the am...

An article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday (14 May) discussed whether or not the long-running bull market in commodities is over. The writer, Liam Ple...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

News Updates MAIZE HOARDING IN KENYA Both maize and maize flour have disappeared from Kenya's market as local buyers have virtually cleaned out all stores...

Indian Soybean and Peanut Plantings Expected to Increase A combination of high prices for oilseeds and a sharp drop in cotton prices is expected to result...

Foreign Relations Cuban Relations: The Castro brothers have blamed the American trade embargo for Cuba's 50-year subpar economy. Many American policymakers...

General Comments Greece and weather dominated grain and soy markets today. Another parliamentary election will be held in June because Greek political part...

  Ministry of Agriculture Issues New Feed Laws for Implementation on 1 July On 11 May, the Ministry of Agriculture issued new draft versions of three...

Markets have certainly poured over the corn, soybean and wheat 2012-13 supply and demand estimates that USDA released last Thursday. Not much has been said...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

A letter from various conservative groups, including think tanks and grassroots taxpayers groups, has been sent to Members of the House of Representatives...

Wheat procurement likely to cross the target – ways and means to distribute and contain damage As of last week, Punjab farmers sold 12.027 MMT of wheat to...

General Comments The soybean market continued its free-fall in the Sunday evening session while losses in corn and wheat were limited. In fact, corn was th...

U.S.-EU Trade Agreement European officials are sounding a lot more enthusiastic than their American counterparts about the prospects for a trans-Atlantic f...

Over the weeks since the Senate reported out its version of the farm bill, WPI has highlighted some potential amendments that could be offered on the Senat...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea milling wheat market has been very quiet this week. The weather in southeastern Ukraine and Southern Russia has been dry. If th...

USDA yesterday officially declared that the long bull market in corn is finished. It did so by increasing old crop supplies by 50 million bushels and decid...

Bias and GMO Labeling The International Food Information Council (IFIC) issued the results of its annual survey of consumer attitudes and found just 3 perc...

General Comments The bearish news overnight was J.P. Morgan's announcement that it had lost $2 billion in the last six weeks from poor derivative trades. T...

General Comments Today's WASDE, including USDA's first look at the U.S. and world supply and demand outlook for 2012/13, added legitimacy to the tug-of-war...

Cabinet Changes: Objective political analysts predict that the power composition of the U.S. government after the November election will be the same as tod...

USDA's May WASDE had a little something for everyone. The bears, especially those who have been liquidating long corn futures positions the last several da...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

WASDE: More Milk, Fewer Dairy Cows, More Pigs Global milk production is up. The drought in Australia and New Zealand is over; lots of rain so far this year...

In its first forecasts for soybeans in MY 2012/13, USDA predicted a very tight supply/demand situation. It is predicting record U.S. soybean exports in 201...

Russian Grain Markets: 1-7 May 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates as of 4 May Bashkortostan Republic: Spring grain crops have been planted on 661,00...

Insurance Angle: Crop insurance is evolving to become a primary support mechanism of U.S. farm policy, now apparently including protection against incident...

General Comments It is the day before another key monthly WASDE, the "Welcome to 2012/13" WASDE. USDA will put up its first 2012/13 U.S. production estimat...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Corn Last Friday Argentine corn showed good trade movement in the FOB market. After some inactivity, interest appeared from FOB buyers at levels around +14...

Futures markets provided by the InterContinental Exchange (ICE) and its affiliates are quite important for certain commodities. They lead the way in the so...

Big Ag Ends in Big Squeeze The bull market will be prolonged if foodies drive food production techniques back to the Stone Age. Regulating the Villains The...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

News Updates IRAQ IMPORT INSPECTIONS The Iraqi government announced that it has terminated its import inspection program with a Swiss-based inspection comp...

The House Budget Committee yesterday passed the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, which included budget reconciliation language reported by the Hou...

General Comments The political situation in Europe, particularly in Greece, has set world financial markets on edge and sent traders looking for safety. Gr...

Call to Restrict Indian Meal Exports India's poultry industry has asked the government to impose a ban on exports of soymeal in order to lower prices. The...

Thus far Congressional policymakers have assured that the 2012 Farm Bill will continue federal subsidies to farmers, consumer subsidies to sugar, and aid t...

USDA will release its May supply and demand revisions (WASDE) this Thursday at 7:30 a.m. CDT. This report has been the subject of much market chatter for s...

High Protein Meal Prices Protein meal prices in India have increased significantly in the last year (even month-to-month), as has demand for protein meal i...

Following are some observations on the Senate farm bill as it stands today with some of the remaining controversies and a look at a few of the other progra...

General Comments The weekend election results in France and Greece sponsored another flight to safety in world capital markets. The dollar and yen soared i...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Hollande and CAP: All are trying to analyze the implications of socialist Francois Hollande's win of the French presidency this past weekend. The right and...

The battle over the definition of "waters of the U.S." has been ongoing for decades, driving the wetlands issue. Most recently, the Environmental Protectio...

General Comments The world was very bearish this morning and that overall bearishness spilled over into the grain and oilseeds markets. The U.S. jobs data...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

This week's Export Sales report from USDA offers insight into the grain market's likely price pattern going forward. Based on historic export patterns, U.S...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Arguably, the most common thread among all common threads involving agriculture these days is "sustainability." We hear this term used constantly. However,...

Ineffective Foundations: A consortium of do-gooder foundations seeking to influence U.S. farm bill policy has staked out very broad and very long-term obje...

China on a Soybean Buying Spree The smaller soybean crop in South America clearly has gotten the attention of Chinese soybean buyers. To make sure they get...

BSE Update The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is asking USDA for information about the timeline of the discovery and announcement of the lates...

Corn A few weeks ago the Argentine government granted an additional 3 MMT of corn export licenses, and the Minister of Internal Affairs granted the Chamber...

General Comments It has been an interesting few days for the CME. First, the ICE's foray into grain and soy markets with all electronic trading for 22 hour...

General Comments With limited fresh news, a stronger dollar and weakness in other commodities, financial markets and other asset classes in general, as wel...

Russian Grain Markets: 23-30 April 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting UpdatesAs of 30 April, Russian spring grain crops were planted on 3.5 million hectares...

Unsustainable UN Reports: The UN's recent report, "Sustainable Development in the 21st century," is like most publications from the organization: a ray of...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

If one wishes to attract attention, one of the best ways is to be successful. Said another way, success attracts attention, whether or not it is wanted. Su...

The Senate Agriculture Committee's farm bill provides up to $10 million per year for a new pilot program on weather index crop insurance. The provision sta...

General Comments When USDA reported that as of last Sunday 53 percent of the intended corn acreage had been planted, it provided a pretty clear signal to g...

EU Proposals Will Exclude Soyoil and Palm Oil as Biodiesel Feedstocks The EU Commission has put forward a "College Orientation Debate" paper offering two p...

Those in conventional energy markets believe that if not for its adverse politics, there are plenty of philosophers in Washington who would raise the price...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

News Updates CORN FLOUR QUALITY PROBLEMS After many consumer complaints, the Tanzanian government is looking into the quality of maize flour available in t...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Substitution of Feed Wheat for Corn Continues to Surge on High Corn Prices Fueled by record corn prices and abundant wheat stocks totalling 50 MMT, substit...

U.S. lawmakers risk compromising "enormous progress" if they fail to pass a farm bill this year, said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday, 20 April.Accord...

General Comments Grain and oilseed markets were firm in the Sunday evening session until Europe came to work with another dose of financial worries. That s...

Dissecting BSE Barriers: South Korea and Japan have domestic policies far more driven to close off their respective import markets in the event of BSE case...

The hard red winter wheat crop quality tour begins tomorrow and tour participants will see a very good looking U.S. winter wheat crop. In fact, some crop f...

New Grain Production Estimates The government of India (GOI) released its third advance estimates on 23 April, putting 2011/12 grain production at 252.56 M...

General Comments There were two bullish factors in today's markets: USDA announced another major round of corn and soybean export sales to China and "unkno...

Will farmers will stick to the planted acres reflected in the March planting intentions report or will they make significant changes based on weather or ma...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Cotton Challenge from Brazil: The Senate Agriculture Committee's version of a new cotton program in the 2012 Farm Bill is unlikely to placate Brazil in its...

The Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday completed the 2012 Farm Bill markup in one session. The Commodity Title is based on the same outline we reported...

Large U.S. Export Sales Today's USDA export sales report once again showed U.S. exporters made large sales last week. The report indicated U.S. exporters s...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Soybeans BRAZIL Brazilian soybeans are almost out of stock. In the past few weeks, several cargoes of soybeans were sold abroad. Chinese demand has been pa...

General Comments Today's market action was what some analysts like to refer to as "consolidation." This is a term that is frequently used when there is not...

Mad Cow: 2003 versus 2012 What a difference a decade makes. The discovery of a BSE-infected dairy cow in California, the fourth case in the U.S., this week...

Inefficiency Beneficial: The organic food industry issued an Orwellian report yesterday proudly claiming that "[p]roducing U.S. foods organically creates t...

Indexes that track the prices of a specified group of commodities have become the subject of considerable controversy ever since 2008, when commodity price...

Longer Farm Bill Delay: As predicted by Dave Juday in yesterday's report, the Senate farm bill is too weighted down to move quickly. Over 120 amendments we...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments Once again the overnight e-session opened lower, then quickly recovered on renewed non-commercial buying. Soybeans were the leader on repo...

Russian Grain Markets: 16-20 April 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting UpdatesAs of 24 April, spring crops were planted on 4,322,900 hectares (76 percent mor...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a new cost estimate of the proposed Senate farm bill. Over the course of 10 years it would save $26.4 billio...

  News Updates KAZAKHSTAN AND IRAN Iran reportedly is very interested in importing grain from Kazakhstan and will build grain elevators to handle the...

Every so often we like to look at where markets have been, and what have been the factors that have influenced them. Hopefully, this gives us a sense of wh...

General Comments Stats Canada released its first estimate of planted crop areas today, and the estimates were pretty much as expected. All wheat acres were...

  News Updates KAZAKHSTAN AND IRAN Iran reportedly is very interested in importing grain from Kazakhstan and will build grain elevators to handle the...

Spain Retaliates As expected, Spain adopted legislation specifying that only EU-origin biodiesel can be used to satisfy that its biodiesel blending require...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

As we reported on Friday, the Senate released its 2012 Farm Bill proposal late on Friday. At the time of this report a revised draft is expected, though li...

Doha Still Choking: A WTO agreement at last week's meeting in Mexico to pursue trade facilitation assistance to developing countries is being fist-pumped a...

The latest bearish exercise in the corn market is talk that the early planted 2012 corn crop also will be harvested early. That certainly makes some sense,...

General Comments The world's financial markets were miserable overnight and today with sharp losses posted everywhere. The French election coupled with the...

Is Higher MSP One Way to Offset Exports? The chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has recommended increasing the minimum supp...

Corn Planting Area to Rise 2 Percent in 2012, Soy Area to Drop 11 Percent A Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) survey and analysis of 2012 planting inte...

John Baize yesterday wrote about the increasing pace of U.S. soybean export sales and the general tightening of the world oilseed markets, including both s...

Senate Farm Bill Proposal: It will take time to analyze the 2012 Farm Bill proposal released late this afternoon but there are no initial surprises. Direct...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea remained nearly unchanged this week despite the volatility in the U.S. futures. The focus is progressively shifti...

General Comments This was a week in which trading was heavily influenced by adjustments of spread positions. The nearby May and July corn contracts held mo...

The Senate Agriculture Committee today released a draft of the 2012 Farm Bill, which is being credited to both Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) and...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

Ukrainian Oilseed Markets: 9-13 April 2012 Domestic prices of sunflower seeds and products and soybeans skyrocketed, supported by active foreign and domest...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Fast Food, Consumer Credit, and Protein Demand Some very bullish economic news from the first quarter of 2012 caught our eye today. First, fast food restau...

Deft Farm Bill Maneuvering: House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma) was obligated to reconcile agriculture spending in accord with th...

General Comments After yesterday's big losses grain and soy futures rebounded during overnight e-trade and during the day session. Support came from Spain'...

Since the topic is forever ongoing, we sometimes tire of discussing the roles that speculators play in markets and in politics. We are sure that clients ar...

Large Soybean and Soymeal Export Sales Today's USDA Exports Sales Report indicated U.S. exporters sold large amounts of soybeans and soymeal last week. Soy...

Big is Better; Boo to Biofuel: USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah receives praise from just about everyone who meets him, but he donned a target shirt while sp...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

General Comments The CME Group today announced its intention to launch a Black Sea milling wheat futures contract with trading to begin on 6 June subject t...

Logistical Problems in Argentina In past years, Argentina has been well known for its excellent port logistics. Normally there is almost no waiting time at...

Russian Grain Markets: 9-13 April 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Planting Updates Delayed spring and cool weather has hampered the planting progress in Russia, a...

Just when you think the Argentine government has done all it can to screw up the country's economy, it manages to do something even more counterproductive...

The debate in Congress last year over Obamacare and in the GOP primary this year over Romneycare, and the Supreme Court's consideration of the federal heal...

Political Speculation: President Barack Obama's proposal today to crack down on financial speculators in the oil market was met with a deserved characteriz...

News Updates ZIMBABWE TO DOUBLE WHEAT CROP The Zimbabwean government wants to double the local wheat crop, though its increase to 75,000 MT seems very smal...

General Comments Spain sold a greater volume of short-term notes than expected and at a lower interest cost than expected, which caused the mood of Europe'...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Later today USDA is expected to announce that corn planting was about 20 percent completed as of last Sunday, 15 April. If so, that would be a record-early...

The following export inspections report was released after the close because of computer problems. The weekly crop progress report will not be released unt...

The perfect bearish storm took better shape today following a very wet weekend across much of the U.S. The rains have set aside the dryness/drought talk fo...

E15 Fight: A lawsuit filed by the auto, oil and food industries against EPA's approval of E15 gets its day in court tomorrow. Meanwhile, a House subcommitt...

Wheat Crop Damaged as Rains Lash North and Northwestern Regions With the wheat procurement target fixed at 30-32 MMT, the recent wet spell in North and Nor...

Activity in the Chicago SRW wheat market spilled over into those for HRW and HRS wheat futures. Changes in the soybean, soyoil, and soymeal futures point t...

Congress has returned from the Easter recess to a very busy schedule this week on ag, energy and trading issues, and what should be a busy schedule in the...

Wrong Problem, Wrong People WTO director General Pascal Lamy announced the creation of a "WTO Panel on Defining the Future of Trade." Lamy lamented that "y...

General Comments China and weather were the bearish market factors today. Markets were very firm early in the overnight session, but that tone changed when...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea is under pressure in sympathy with the U.S. wheat market. Last week, the Egyptian GASC purchased 115,000 MT of U...

This week's USDA supply/demand report was bearish because, contrary to widespread belief, USDA made no changes to the ending stocks number. That erroneous...

Subsidy limits for crop insurance payments made to farmers have been a topic of heated debate during the last several farm bills, from total payment limits...

WPI provides a summary of the week's futures price activity and the gains/losses experiences by grain, oilseed, and livestock markets. Additionally, today'...

General Comments The InterContinental Exchange (ICE) announced that subject to CFTC approval it plans to launch new futures contracts for corn, wheat, soyb...

Darden Restaurants announced its plans to build a spiny lobster farm in eastern Borneo. The Orlando-based company operates several restaurant chains, inclu...

FDA Issues Guidance on Antibiotics A number of environmental groups last year filed a lawsuit requiring that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdra...

Food Aid Fight: Farmers are debating between four different commodity support options for the 2012 Farm Bill, but the largest expenditure category by USDA...

Wheat ARGENTINA The Argentine government apparently will not release any additional export licenses for wheat in the present campaign. Although there was n...

As we have commented before, the market has had a chance to study the April WASDE, and the focus has now shifted to weather, new crop prospects, the Chines...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments After yesterday's financial market doom and gloom, things did not look quite as bad today. Interest rates on Spanish debt dropped below 5...

Russian Grain Market: 2-6 April 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR Planting Updates According to information received from the Ministry of Agriculture on 10...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) wants to add a regulatory title to the farm bill. The congressman last fall introduced legislation called "Freeing...

General Comments USDA's April WASDE basically told the market what it already knew or already assumed. It provided nothing new for markets to trade on, unl...

No Big Surprises for Soy in WASDE Report Today's USDA world supply and demand estimates report contained no big surprises for soybeans and soybean products...

As far as markets are concerned, USDA's April WASDE is not a game changer. Some of the changes from the March WASDE exceeded expectations, and some did not...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

News Updates IMF AND EGYPT: CHAPTER 14 The IMF saga in Egypt continues. A loan advance seems to be impossible with the current situation in the North Afric...

General Comments Markets started the Sunday evening session very strong, with soybeans posting double-digit gains and wheat and corn 4-6 cents higher. Thos...

Information Markets and Politics Information providers are generally keen on anything that contributes to understanding. Thus, there is disappointment that...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

If the Senate had taken up the farm bill as it had originally planned, then the farm bill would be marked up in Ag Committee by now. Indeed, the plan was t...

India's Pulse Imports to Reach 3.5 MMT India, the world's biggest buyer of pulses (lentils), in 2010/11 reduced its imports to 2.7 MMT because farmers, enc...

The 30 March USDA quarterly stocks reports indicated that we should see reductions in the ending supply estimates for corn, soybeans and wheat in tomorrow'...

FX and Brazilian Pork Currency fluctuations are impacting the Brazilian pork sector -- for the better. The average price of pork in Brazil in March was $2...

General Comments Note: Grain and soy futures markets will be closed tomorrow, Friday, 6 April, for the Easter holiday as will most financial markets (and W...

Purported Solutions: Members of Congress are reportedly getting an earful from constituents over the price of gasoline. Republicans are saying the solution...

Large Soybean and Soymeal Sales Reported by USDA Today's USDA export sales reported indicated U.S. exporters recorded large sales of soybeans and soymeal i...

It is axiomatic that when freely traded market prices move up or down -- no matter for what -- some people will always be made unhappy. We have often said...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

For some months now, the fertilizer industry has been full of anticipation for the U.S. 2012 spring planting season. The considerations were pretty simple,...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

General Comments Even though the Spanish government yesterday put forward a package of tight budget and spending reforms, today's Spanish bond auction rece...

Wheat ARGENTINA The old crop wheat market showed some movement once again. Demand came from African countries, with North Africa taking 11.5 percent protei...

Farm Policy CAP: EU Commission proposals to impose payment limitations on direct payments is running into resistance as some suggest that farmers will mere...

Russian Grain Market: 26-30 March 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR As of 3 April, Russia began planting early grains and leguminous crops -- barley, oats a...

South American Soy Crop Forecasts Reduced Further The drought in South America continues to take its toll, according to crop analysts. Yesterday the Brazil...

Today's closing prices for the first six listed futures contracts for major grain, oilseed, and livestock contracts are shown along with their price change...

The Clean Air Act and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations require that gasoline and diesel fuels as well as fuel additives for use in highway...

World Bank Money Train Outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he was OK with the BRICS countries seeking to form their own international develo...

General Comments Other than another round of South American crop estimates, there has not been much in the way of fresh input for grain and soy markets. Ch...

Love, Food and Deception More rants on the lies that are told about the agrifood system, and those who seek to deceive us. A Wheat Market Surplus The era o...