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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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),...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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 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...

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

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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

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...

  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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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'...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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,...

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...

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

Echoes of USDA's report on 1 March planting intentions and quarterly stocks estimates are still reverberating, and no doubt they will continue to do so. We...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

News Updates EGYPT AND FUEL Much like the recent fuel crisis in the UK, Egypt's fuel shortage continues to create complications. The Egyptian government ha...

As we've noted many times, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has waived the statutory cellulosic biofuel mandate for three straight years, but has...

If ever there were evidence of the shortage of science degrees in America, consumers' anxiety over the content delivered by the food system would be exhib...

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 Soybean futures continued to roll higher today, with gains exceeding 30 cents a bushel at one point during the session. Corn didn't punch...

Last Friday's USDA reports threw another major curve ball at the markets just when the market bears were getting comfortable in with their bearish frame of...

Expansion in Dry Milling Sector Adds to Grain Prices Until recently, potable alcohol for blending in whiskey and pharmaceuticals was derived from molasses...

Another step toward making E15 a reality has been made. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the model misfueling mitigation plan (MMP) s...

Today's USDA reports offered something for everyone, but there were some very significant surprises. The first and most bearish surprise was that U.S. farm...

Milling Wheat The milling wheat market was quiet this week in anticipation of the important USDA report. The rising temperatures and rain in Russia and Ukr...

General Comments Funds (and others) have been major sellers of grain and oilseed futures ahead of today's USDA acreage and quarterly stocks reports. The 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'...

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...

Argentina's Soybean Crop Likely Fewer Than 44 MMT The most recent reports, including one from a large soybean processor, from Argentina indicate that the c...

Who Takes the Long Side? It is too often unclear whether commentary from politicians is based on the required expediency of their craft, or reflects actual...

As we and the markets wait for tomorrow's stocks and acreage reports, it seems like a good time to get rid of a few other things that have occurred to us b...

U.S. to Appeal COOL Case in WTO The U.S. Trade Representative has announced that the U.S. will appeal the WTO's November 2011 ruling against country of ori...

General Comments It was more of the same for commodity and financial markets today as investor/speculators again scrambled to liquidate long positions. Sto...

The reputation destruction that was just quickly and definitively imposed on lean, finely textured beef (LFTB) and the company that made it is actually occ...

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...

Wheat ARGENTINA These days, wheat sellers have been concentrating on North African demand. In the Egyptian tender, 11.5 percent protein Argentine wheat was...

General Comments Today saw a major effort by traders to shed risks in a wide variety of markets. In fact, it is hard to find a commodity market, financial...

Background Here in WPI's hometown of Washington, D.C., the end of March is a busy time. There are cherry blossoms, warm sunshine and of course college bask...

Russian Grain Market: 19-23 March 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR The Russian domestic grain market showed continued price trends from the previous week,...

The South Carolina House of Representatives is considering a bill that would ban the state from buying any ground beef for school lunch that includes lean...

USDA's highly anticipated reports on 1 March U.S. quarterly grain and soybean stocks and the 1 March initial planting intentions will be released Friday mo...

News Updates SOUTH AFRICAN MAIZE DEFICIT: IS IT REAL? Recent shipments of corn from Romania to South Africa reportedly were needed to cover the latter's ex...

Southeast Asia's palm oil industry has incurred persistent attacks from Western environmental and animal protection groups for its destruction of rainfores...

WTO on Exchange Rates Director General Pascal Lamy opened the WTO Seminar on Exchange Rates and Trade by warning that the subject is complex, emotional and...

General Comments Red was the color du jour for grain and soy markets today. This was after the overnight session saw wheat and soy prices trade higher and...

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...

Not Worth Its Salt The EU has been making inroads with its effort to expand protections for geographic indicators (GI), and this has forced U.S. producers...

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 soy complex continues to trade bullish South American production estimates, and the trade continues to buy soybeans and sell everythin...

DRC Projects Corn Imports Could Reach 20 MMT by 2020 A researcher with the State Council Development Research Center (DRC) projects that China's corn produ...

Ten Years of GM Cotton in India: Good or Bad? Ten years ago today, GM cotton was introduced in India. Some would say that this event changed the world cott...

The value of farmland in the U.S. has been going straight since the early 1990s. A friend who bought farmland back in the early '90s told me that the value...

The House Budget Committee was expected to pass Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-Wisconsin) proposed budget last Wednesday, 12 March. They did. This Wednesday, 28 M...

General Comments Markets were higher in the Thursday evening session following the late buying on Thursday. Soybeans led the comeback on news that Argentin...

Livestock Decisions Antibiotics Use: A federal court has ruled that U.S. FDA must proactively determine whether antibiotic use in animals compromises their...

In 1988 a La Nina weather pattern brought a crushing drought to the Corn Belt. This year started off with a moderate La Nina pattern, which generated some...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea market was quiet this week as demand shifted to South America. The debate over the winterkill rate in Ukraine is attracting dif...

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

Because there was a lot going on in the energy world with both markets and policy in the past week, we thought it would be a good time to look at some of t...

It isn't often the WPI defers to other sources, but the subject of trend line yields can be very confusing. We have pointed out on numerous occasions the i...

Oriens vs. Occido According to a 23 March Nikkei news report, Democratic Party of Japan officials say that the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations "are...

India and Iran Hook Up on Soymeal Reports today indicate that Iranian firms have recently purchased about 100,000 MT of Indian soymeal for $420-435/MT FOB...

Unhealthy Meat As Gary Blumenthal highlighted last week, a recent study from Harvard indicates that any consumption of red meat increases mortality risk. 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...

General Comments In overnight e-trade grain prices traded higher briefly at the opening, then sank back into the red in slow trade. This is the condition i...

Strike Update Argentine grain truckers have been striking since 19 March. They are asking for a hauling rate increase of about 30 percent, and talks betwee...

One of the greatest examples of conceit we know of comes from anyone who claims to know what grain and soy market prices will do in the next three, six or...

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...

Farm Policy Simplification It is a broad mantra that farm policy needs to be simplified. In the U.S., various proposals have been made for a single, cross-...

General Comments Long liquidation in corn continued overnight, but soybeans uncovered some support in light volume trade. This pattern was the general them...

Russian Grain Market: 12-16 March 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR Last week, prices in Russia's domestic grain market moved in different directions across...

Push Local Retail Apparently the hosts of this summer's Olympic Games in London had a clause requiring all poultry being served to originate in the UK, pur...

General Comments Most equity and commodity markets around the world today were waving scarlet flags. Investors/speculators with long positions began to agg...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) today released his "Chairman's mark" budget. The House Budget Committee is scheduled to markup the...

Sunflower oil is the world's fourth most abundant vegoil after palm oil, soyoil and rapeseed oil. It long has been the vegoil of choice in countries like F...

News Updates U.S. GSM-102 PROGRAM At the end of February, the totals booked in dollars through the U.S. GSM-102 program for Africa and the Middle East were...

We are 10 days away from USDA's 1 March quarterly stocks report and its report on initial U.S. planting intentions. These reports are always important, 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...

Economic Survey 2011/12 India's latest Economic Survey estimates that the Indian economy will slow to a 6.9 percent increase in 2011/12 after having grown...

In anticipation of the House budget plan, social media sites and conventional media outlets are all atwitter. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-...

The large speculators and at least some of the large commercials have been big sellers (shorts) in the wheat markets for some time now. Large speculative s...

Business' Trade Agenda The U.S., Europe and others have shifted towards a post-Doha plurilateral approach to trade liberalization, which has developing cou...

A Return to Tight Hog Supplies in 2012 Could Slacken China's Corn Demand Expectations for a rebound in hog inventories and reduced pork prices this year ar...

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 Corn, soybean and wheat futures started a bit higher in the Sunday evening session but faded by morning and finished lower. Today's sessio...

Milling Wheat As the snow melts, the extent of the severe winter's impact becomes clearer. Crop damage seems to be worse than expected in many parts of the...

General Comments The market seemed prepared for a day of profit taking today at the end of a much stronger week of trade than what most were looking for. M...

USDA Acting Undersecretary Michael Scuse yesterday testified on behalf of the Administration at the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing. Scuse defended th...

The soybean market has defied bearish analytical gravity for the umpteenth year in a row. Each of the past several years has started with projections of bi...

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

E15 Process EPA approved the Model Misfueling Mitigation Plan for the use of E15 in 2001 and newer vehicles. This follows last month's decision by the agen...

Warming Weather, Cooling Markets This week cattle prices dropped, which is unusual for seasonal markets, moving into the spring and summer high-demand seas...

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...

Obviously, there are many factors to consider when putting together a supply, demand and ending stocks analysis for wheat, corn and soybeans. Supply and de...

General Comments The soybean futures market is like a runaway truck. You can analyze and dissect its movements all you want, but if you stand in front of i...

European Rapeseed Processors Crushed by Rising Seed Price Europe's rapeseed processors have seen crushing margins fall to negative levels as a result of th...

Soil Moisture Top soil moisture over the Pampa Humeda region has improved with the recent rainfall in the country. The weather forecast predicts abundant s...

GM Machinations While Europe remains bogged down policy-wise on how to handle divergent member state opinions on the planting of GM crops, the effort to de...

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...

Rotten Meat Study Activists and the media are the usual sources of erroneous information regarding the agrifood system. That is frustrating enough, but it...

General Comments Soybeans continued to push higher overnight while the grains were mixed. That pattern continued into the day session, except that by mid-s...

Russian Grain Market: 6-9 March 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR Planting SeasonAccording to the Russian ag minister, spring crops in the country will be p...

We firmly believe that taking a complete break from markets and related topics is a healthy thing -- at least for us.  That is what we did for the las...

India is now the world's largest importer of palm oil and Indonesia the world's largest exporter. Therefore, it is of some consequence that the two countri...

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 Federal Reserve's FOMC finished its March meeting today by issuing some guardedly optimistic comments about the U.S. economy. It noted...

News Updates PAKISTANI WHEAT TO IRAN Pakistani authorities are working very hard on a plan to export 1.5 MMT of milling wheat and 1.2 MMT of rice to Iran o...

In the last, but certainly not least, of the Senate Ag Committee's series of farm bill hearings, lawmakers have finally made their way to the commodity tit...

3/11 Policy Effects From an American standpoint, the multiple disasters that struck Japan a year ago this week were transformative. Before calamity struck,...

High Wheat Production and Procurement in India Indian farmers in the western states -- Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and central India (Madhya Pradesh) -...

Pink, Pink You Stink The media has had a heyday with the revelation that meat scraps are used in the making of hamburger (e.g. minced meat), and has sought...

This morning I spoke with a Central Illinois farmer who said that weekend rains were less than expected. It seems that weather talk is starting to bloom. I...

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 number of alternative fuel amendments could come up for a vote tomorrow in the Senate as part of the highway bill now being debated. This includes an ext...

Not many were expecting today's USDA WASDE updates to show significant changes, and that is exactly what we got. In general, pre-report expectations were l...

General Comments Buoyed by news that Greece's bond swap offer had almost 86 percent participation, which was much better than expected, markets were firm i...

U.S. aggies give Canada's Harper government a lot of credit for ending the Canadian Wheat Board (now officially CWB) monopoly over grain marketing, but the...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea is quiet. Talks about a possible export tax from Russia are resurfacing again, but the government has not announc...

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), chairwoman of the Senate Ag Committee, this week announced that she will mark up a farm bill this spring. Stabenow is...

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

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...

Good Week for U.S. Soy Export Sales Today's USDA export sales report showed U.S. exporters had a banner week last week selling soybeans. The report indicat...

It goes without saying that USDA's monthly WASDE is a strong common thread that grain and soy markets face. Death and taxes may be inevitable, but so too a...

General Comments If there is concern that USDA might further lower world corn production and ending stocks that are already just about the tightest in hist...

Inside the Numbers The tables above tell a story about the beef, poultry and pork sectors. Beef slaughter is down about 6 percent, poultry is sustaining th...

Farm Policy without Economics The policy brief "Toward Healthy Food and Farms" by the Union of Concerned Scientists uses neither science nor economics in i...

TPP Leverage The Trans-Pacific Partnership has forced countries such as Japan to re-examine their insular approach to policies like agriculture, and now Ta...

Russian Grain Market: 29 February – 6 March 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR Different price trends took place last week in Russia's domestic grain market,...

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 Since gasoline prices are included in the energy sector, they do not figure into the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's calculations of the rate...

Corn The corn spot market has been under pressure because there was a good harvest in February. This caused a drop in FOB basis levels. Cargo was traded at...

The Food and Agricultural Policy Institute (FAPRI) is a well-known and widely followed agricultural research organization formed jointly by the University...

General Comments Commodity markets, including grain and soy markets, found plenty to worry about today. First, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the People's...

A group of 68 lawmakers yesterday sent a letter to the CFTC, demanding that immediate position limits be promulgated under the Dodd-Frank bill. The lawmake...

India's Soymeal Exports Decline Sharply in February The Solvent Extractors Association of India today reported India's exports of soymeal in February this...

Machinery Romanticism Expanding the manufacturing sector in the U.S. has been the rallying cry of some politicians. They are calling for tax incentives on...

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...

Impending Change in China China's national interest is to continue economic growth and maintain an adequate supply of food, both of which are ambitions tha...

News Updates EGYPTIAN AND ALGERIAN AGRIBUSINESS REPORTS There were new reports out this week on the agribusiness in both Egypt and Algeria. The following a...

Scientists Say India Needs to Adopt New Technology and Remove Constraints The 2011 Global Hunger Index ranked India 67th out of 81 countries -- even below...

The markets have been absorbed with discussions about the potential for big corn acres with record or near-record yield estimates and a correspondingly lar...

The price of gasoline is one of the new themes emerging from the 2012 election (see WPI 24 February). We've seen it in the Republican presidential candidat...

General Comments Markets were generally lower in the Sunday evening session with no support from the outside markets. In fact, financial markets in Asia, 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...

Selective Fueling Information The government has mandated an enhanced fuel economy sticker on all new automobiles. The fuel economy rating must provide a v...

General Comments Crude oil has had a rather incredible trading range since the agricultural commodity markets closed on Thursday. Rumors of an oil pipeline...

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

U.S. Ag's Skepticism of EU The joint EU-U.S. Working Group on Jobs and Growth (see WPI 24 February) is trying to calculate how best to move forward on a tr...

Farmers across the U.S. have been busy planning for the upcoming production season for months. The winter farm meeting circuit is, for all practical purpos...

Two major U.S. ethanol policy developments look bullish -- at least on paper -- for Brazilian ethanol exports. One is the 31 December 2011 expiration of th...

Milling Wheat The market in the Black Sea is quiet with limited activity reported this week. Confident that the total grain exports will exceed the previou...

Ag Gag The Iowa legislature has passed a bill called "ag gag" by opponents that would make it a crime for animal activists to surreptitiously gain employme...

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...

Fraud versus Whistleblowers The Iowa legislature passed a bill that would make it high misdemeanor to gain access to an agricultural production facility, l...

General Comments Iran has been a constant topic in the news lately. The imposition of the latest set of sanctions against the country is a stepped-up effor...

This morning we happened to peruse the "Money & Investing" section of today's The Wall Street Journal. We do not do this every day since we do not have...

Tyson CEO Expects U.S. Protein Consumption to Continue Decline The COO of Tyson Foods, today told attendees at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2012 Globa...

General Comments The soybean market extended its rally and closed higher for the eighth straight trading day. Corn followed to post a higher close for the...

Russian Grain Market: 20-28 February 2012 GRAIN COMMODITIES AND FLOUR Russian domestic grain market trends continued their upward trend. All crop prices in...

Soil Moisture Top soil moisture levels in the Pampa Humeda region are clearly recovering. The rainfall received last weekend and the beginning of this week...

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...

March Wind Reports Tomorrow begins the month of March, which is apparently USTR publication month. It starts tomorrow with the agency issuing to Capitol Hi...

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...