Politicons The petroleum industry gets a politically inspired federal investigation every time gasoline prices rise above consumer comfort levels. This yea...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea wheat market is firmer. The domestic market in Russia has rallied to levels that are above the export parity. This is logical c...

Agriculture Losing the War Modern agricultural practices will never obtain approval from their philosophical antagonists; the goal is to explain agricultur...

The new era of extreme price volatility coupled with very high prices and equally high crop insurance revenue guarantees have made it tough for the minor o...

The old adage that high prices cure high prices is being proved again by the energy sector. U.S. petroleum output has been growing since 2008, based largel...

General Comments It was a quiet session overnight with soybeans firmer and corn and wheat slightly weaker. That was the pattern throughout much of the day,...

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 Turkish attack on a Syrian military installation may be part of the reason for today's increase in gasoline and crude oil prices, but...

U.S. Economy for the Birds The U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation and United Egg Producers have issued...

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...

Canada's Canola Crop Forecast Well Below Analysts' Expectations Statistics Canada today released its estimates for that country's 2012 crops and the foreca...

No American Rats Dying Unsurprisingly, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) opined that the rat study carried out by anti-biotech researcher Gilles-Er...

Corn Market The Argentine corn FOB market continues to be pretty similar to what was reported last week. Some trading houses are running out of corn export...

Farmers Pick Cash Some EU member states are pressing for budget reductions in Brussels, and that could factor into the current effort at reforming the Comm...

The CBOT day session opened one hour late on Tuesday, 2 October 2007 due to technical problems. According to WPI's Bob Kohlmeyer: It was clear that profess...

Russian Grain Markets: 27-30 September 2012 Harvesting Updates As of 28 September, Russia harvested grains and grain legumes on 36 million hectares, or 91...

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 China is on holiday and market conditions are similar to when parents are gone or when the boss is out of the office: the market is free t...

General Comments As Dave Juday noted yesterday, in response to a suit filed against the CFTC by two swaps and financial market trade associations in the U...

News Updates EGYPT COMMENTS The government of Egypt is making every effort to reduce subsidies on some major food items. As reported a few weeks ago, the g...

Commodities and Elections Financial and commodity indicators correlate with elections, but there is a more important conclusion. Soy Prices Fail to Ration...

Taiwan Crushers Tender for Soybeans Encouraged by the recent sharp drop in soybean futures prices, Taiwan's Breakfast Soybean Procurement Association (BSPA...

The corn and soybean harvests are going full blast in the United States. Those of us with long -- though not necessarily accurate -- memories can recall fa...

Activists Kick Butt The attack on conventional agriculture by activists is getting stranger by the day. Now it is reported that activist investor Carl Icah...

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 farm bill expired on Sunday, and by Monday the anticipated recriminations were flying. Various statements and tweets from the Democratic leadership tar...

Last Friday's USDA quarterly stocks report found about 40 million bushels more soybeans than expected. That news started the soybean market lower and it wa...

Trade Liberalization Wow Doha is dead, long live Doha; and Africa is a continental backwater -- all no more! Largely given up for dead, apparently the true...

General Comments The start of the new quarter brought buying to financial markets but not to commodity markets. Corn futures were firmer on, as one trader...

Back in January, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) filed a lawsu...

Food Grain Production Down, Rainfall Deficit at 7.6 Percent The government of India (GOI) last week released its first 2012/13 crop and grain production es...

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...

Chinese Government Likely to Raise the Purchasing Price for Corn Recently, market discussions suggest that the Chinese government is likely to raise the 20...

Milling Wheat Russian and Ukrainian wheat prices are increasing sharply. It's difficult to find offers for October, and there are no offers at all for Dece...

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 A bullish USDA quarterly stocks report following two weeks or so of big time fund liquidation caught corn and wheat markets too short with...

This morning's USDA quarterly stocks numbers threw bullish corn and wheat numbers at the market. The soybean number was slightly bearish. Needless to say,...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a report on the Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA), or unemployment taxes. CBO in its report con...

Yes on Biotech Labeling Comedian/commentator Bill Maher's comment on the American people is that "[t]hey're not very bright." The real problem is that ther...

Corn Market By the end of last week after some trades were made, Argentine corn premiums became firmer. This week the FOB market remained the same. Main is...

Broad Pain from Tomatoes The Commerce Department has preliminarily suspended a tomato antidumping agreement with Mexico that was negotiated back in 1996. 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 In anticipation of tomorrow's Grain Stocks report, market participants may have reversed the old adage, "buy the rumor, sell the fact," in...

China Sells More Reserve Soybeans The Chinese government today sold an additional 400,001 MT of soybeans from its reserve stocks. The soybeans were sold to...

Fewer and Heavier Cattle Mean Less Feed Last week's Cattle on Feed report showed an 11 percent drop in placements despite industry expectations of placemen...

General Comments Consumers can be more flexible with gasoline consumption than food consumption, so it does not make a lot of sense that European economic...

Wrong-Way Trade Policy Trade policy remains a wreck with countries concurrently practicing their own protectionism while complaining vehemently about that...

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: 17-21 September 2012 Harvesting and Planting Updates National Grain Producers Union President Pavel Skurihin forecasted that Russia...

Friday, 28 September 2001 was a "day of getting clobbered" in the markets, according to WPI's Ben Beneke. It is unclear what started it: "the general neutr...

Soymeal Consumption to Rise in North Africa and Middle East Despite Turmoil The revolutions that have taken place in the primarily Muslim countries of the...

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney recently outlined their stances on agriculture issues for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). This is as clo...

News Updates EGYPT COMMENTS Egypt's GASC said that in recent weeks it has built up the strategic wheat stockpiles to a level that can cover the country's n...

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 has sold off a dollar and soybeans almost $2 in the past month. The strong basis and slow decline in open interest makes it appear th...

Reform Process Continues The Indian government (GOI) is keen to continue the reform process it began back in 1991. While growth was positive in some years,...

Things are looking up for the Brazilian sugarcane sector despite world sugar prices stuck at near-two-year lows of 19 cents per pound (U.S. sugar prices ar...

Negative Attitude Towards GMOs Increases Among Chinese Consumers Chinese consumers are becoming less tolerant of GMOs, according to a survey conducted by 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...

USDA will release its 1 September quarterly stocks report this Friday. These quarterly stocks reports have been very tricky to interpret recently, especial...

General Comments Note: Last Friday we reported that negotiations in the labor dispute at Pacific Northwest (PNW) ports had been extended for 90 days. That...

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 It was another very erratic overnight session with wide price swings, especially in the soy complex. November soybeans traded as much as 1...

Dennis Gartman (of The Gartman Report) reportedly told an audience to short John Deere stock because U.S. farmers won't have any money to buy farm equipmen...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday officially commented on the fate of the farm bill. "We will deal with the farm bill after the election," he...

Reason for RFS Waiver Currently attention is being focused on the near-term impact of the current short crop and whether the Environmental Protection Agenc...

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...

With harvest only months away, Australian wheat production remains on a familiar knife-edge -- the scope for wheat production remains as wide as ever (20-2...

Drought Cuts Australian Canola Crop Forecast The Australian Oilseeds Federation (AOF) this week reduced its forecast for that country's upcoming canola har...

Pigs of the Future: Impact on Feed The high feed costs as a result of the drought have led to a reduction -- rather than what was expected to be an expansi...

General Comments The December 2012 corn contract may be forming a double bottom at $7.39. If this contract closes out the week strong tomorrow, then a temp...

General Comments Yesterday it was noted that there were buyers waiting at lower prices for the market to come their way. Increasing numbers of those prospe...

Corn Market After the release of new corn export licenses, the government began authorizing specific requests from each trading house. More than 0.8 MMT we...

The "winds of change" swept through the pits in Chicago on Wednesday morning, 15 September 1999. According to WPI's Gregg Doud: In reality, there was very...

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: 10-14 September 2012 Harvesting Updates The Russian Grain Union forecasts the grain crop in that country at 72 MMT. The crop current...

Biotech Hurdles France: France initially announced that it planned to keep its "moratorium" on the planting of biotech crops. The difference is that "morat...

The White House released its sequester report late last week, outlining the potential cuts to various government programs. The following is a summary of sc...

No Cooperation at Forum Apparently, USDA's September WASDE report was not sufficiently comforting on food prices. France has sent notice of a "Rapid Respon...

News Updates EGYPT COMMENTS Egypt's GASC was back in the wheat market, booking another 235,000 MT of wheat as of last Thursday. This included 120,000 MT of...

EPA Sets Biodiesel Blend Mandate at 1.28 Billion Gallons The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last Friday announced that it will set the biodiese...

General Comments Brazilian farmers were allowed to start planting soybeans as of this past weekend. From 15 June until 15 September no soybeans were suppos...

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 possibility of aflatoxin in harvested corn is a frightening prospect to all market participants. Aflatoxin is a carcinogen produced by certain mold fun...

General Comments Grain and oilseed markets started lower Sunday evening. The selling snowballed as the night wore on with another major leg down happening...

India's Modest Reform A group of Indian agribusiness representatives is in Washington to explain India's export potential and pitch for foreign direct inve...

The House last week passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government through 2013. And as we predicted on 10 September, the CR did not co...

China Continues to Spend on Farmland Improvement China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) recently announced that the government will invest $5.9 billion this yea...

You would think that when supplies of corn and soybeans are headed to their tightest levels ever you would see strong basis levels. The opposite is true to...

Irrigation Infrastructure and New Technology Can Help Agriculture India has approximately 140 million hectares of net cultivated area (the gross area of 19...

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's Federal Reserve announcement that it will inject $40 billion per month into the economy buoyed U.S. and world financial market...

The September USDA reports again verified just how severely U.S. corn and soybean production was impacted by the drought of 2012. We can all still argue ab...

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

Sequester Issues Earlier this summer the federal agencies appeared to be oblivious as to the implications of the fiscal cliff scheduled for 2013. Indeed, t...

Milling Wheat The milling wheat market in the Black Sea is much firmer. The catalyst for the rally was the seventh GASC tender in six weeks. Russian wheat...

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 As could be expected, yesterday's WASDE showed a decrease in meat and poultry production based on an increase in beef driven by drought liquidation,...

Biotech Shifts The assault on agricultural biotechnology has increased in the United States and Prop 37 (mandatory labeling) in California is a major threa...

Floods During the past week, excessive precipitation fell over central Buenos Aires, flooding a third of the area. In some cases, this rainfall duplicated...

When we first became involved in trading grain and soybeans, one of the most impressive features of grain trade practices for us was the casual, off-handed...

High Winds Reduce Canada's Canola Production The amount of canola Canada harvests this year will be reduced as a result of high winds that occurred this we...

General Comments Grain and soy futures traded in mixed fashion overnight. Corn, soybeans and wheat prices were on both sides in fairly active trade. Wheat...

USDA's eagerly awaited September WASDE was greeted happily by corn market bears and soybean market bulls. USDA reduced the 2012/13 average corn yield from...

Green Policies Take Beating The economic doldrums on both sides of the Atlantic, coupled with other concerns, are forcing environmental goals to take a bac...

On Thursday, 12 September 2002, USDA's September WASDE "gave the market what it had anticipated," and as a result, "overbought signal and profit-taking wer...

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: 3-7 September 2012 Harvesting Updates The Russian Ministry of Agriculture announced that as of 10 September, farmers harvested grain...

Today's WASDE report was considered bearish for corn because the national average corn yield of 122.8 bushels per acre was larger than the average analyst...

General Comments Basically, CME grain and soy futures trade today was a tale of two markets. USDA's modest cuts in 2012 production prospects and a 2012/13...

EU Commission Proposes to Scale Back Use of Food Crops for Biofuel The EU Commission has drafted new rules that would substantially scale back the use of f...

General Comments In the 14 trading days since 21 August, the CME December corn contract has dropped about 63 cents. Price action has been choppy and irregu...

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...

Trans-Atlantic Analytical Differences EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos indicates he is prepared to discuss the role of biofuels given concerns by...

In a "normal" year the September WASDE yield and crop estimates are usually just bridges between the August WASDE, when the estimates reflect the first act...

News Updates EGYPT COMMENTS The Egyptian government stated that all details required for its IMF loan should be in place in about two months, and that it e...

While more than 40 farm and commodity groups in the Farm Bill Now coalition rally for congressional action on a farm bill, the American Enterprise Institut...

Ethanol's Lagging Support After correctly perceiving the drought drying up its political support in Washington, the ethanol industry is mounting a tour de...

General Comments Markets were mixed to start the Sunday evening session and traded both sides of unchanged throughout the night. Corn, wheat and soybeans w...

USDA will update its crop production and ending supply estimates Wednesday morning. Obviously, these are very important numbers because it is very likely t...

Chinese Consumers Turn Toward Imported Food A recent survey conducted by an international market research firm shows that more Chinese consumers have turne...

Back in 1979 President Jimmy Carter famously described the malaise that he perceived gripping the nation. While Carter never actually used the term "malais...

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...

Indian Monsoon May Not Be Enough Despite the fact that the monsoon rain deficit is declining due to its a late resurgence (it is now at 9 percent), it may...

Laggard Trade Policy Free trade advocates have long complained about the Obama Administration's laggard initiative on such negotiations. However, the Romne...

General Comments Markets were weak overnight with soybeans showing the greatest weakness. Wheat was firm and eventually traded sharply higher. Corn traded...

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 Russian wheat continues to be the cheapest for September shipment. November shipment is offered at a high premium against September since the...

Stats Canada released its 31 July stocks report this morning and it continued to follow the trend of smaller-than-expected numbers (see table below).It is...

One factor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will rely upon for its analysis of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) on corn prices is the price...

Indian Soymeal Sales Plummet in August India's soymeal exports last month totaled only 10,005 MT, which was 95 percent lower than exports of 165,510 MT 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...

Shameless Category Protectionism knows no bounds as the Made in the USA Foundation announces it has filed a lawsuit against the WTO for determining that th...

General Comments History seldom repeats itself precisely, but human nature is fairly consistent. Prices are reflections of human behavior under similar cir...

Long-Term Demand Destruction in Feed Sector While corn and soybean futures prices jumped 41 percent and 33 percent, respectively, since the start of June,...

Grain and soy markets are easing their way toward next Wednesday's September WASDE from USDA, and all eyes will be on the USDA NASS updated yield and produ...

Ethanol trade association Growth Energy in a letter to Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe wrote that the end result of waiver to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS...

On Tuesday, 7 September 1999, many traders were hoping to see bullish markets. Bob Kohlmeyer wrote: They are sick of the low price, low volatility, low vol...

Ethanol After Argentina's large investment in biodiesel plants during the last few years, the next step will be developing corn crushing plants to produce...

China Secures Agricultural Investments Overseas China Oil and Foodstuffs Co., (COFCO), the nation's largest food manufacturer, and New Hope Group, China's...

Russian Grain Markets: 22-28 August 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvesting Updates According to the Russian Ag Ministry's Department of Crop Production, as of...

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 Grain and soy prices closed weaker in another low volume day session following the trend established earlier in overnight trade. More liqu...

It has been a long, hot (and dry) summer for U.S. soybean growers. It also has been an unusually hot summer for U.S. soybean exporters. Brazilian and Argen...

Indian Soy Processors Too Optimistic About Soymeal Exports Reports indicate India has begun its 2012/13 soymeal export sales program with sales of about 25...

Democrats Evolve The holding of power necessitates responsibility. This year's Democratic Party platform commits to "free and fair trade" and boasts that t...

India Quarterly GDP Growth Lowest in 10 Years During the first quarter of FY 2013 (April-June), India's GDP grew 5.5 percent over the corresponding quarter...

General Comments Grain and soy futures staged a strong price rally overnight as prospects for tight supplies again outweighed anything the bears had to off...

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 AFRICA COMMENTS The Kenyan government has decided to import maize into government-held strategic stocks to ensure that the supply in the count...

The Federal Reserve recently released its minutes on the 31 July – 1 August Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC) meeting, giving insight into the central b...

The debate over just how small the U.S. corn and soybean crops are, along with how much rationing has been accomplished, will rage on for another couple of...

General Comments Grain and the soy complex faced three important or potentially important influences today. First, there was the Russian Food Security Coun...

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 remained about unchanged. This morning the Russian government decided not to restrict exports for the time...

The hue and cry over the ethanol use mandate in the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and the possibility that the Russian government might intervene 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...

RFS Waiver on the Clock Two more states, Texas and Virginia, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to waive the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)...

General Comments There was no follow-through buying when the markets re-opened late yesterday afternoon following the very strong performance of corn, whea...

Southeast Asian Ag Sector Surprisingly Optimistic As I mentioned yesterday, this week I am participating in the 9th Annual Southeast Asia Agricultural Coop...

Non-Biotech Subsidies -- Taxpayers Although there is no final decision as yet, it looks as though it will be the taxpayer on the hook to compensate growers...

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...

Demand Rationing of Soy Not Apparent in Southeast Asia This week I am attending and speaking at the 9th Southeast Asia Agricultural Cooperators Conference...

Corn There were several inquiries for Argentine corn for October, November and December shipment. As a result, some trades were made at -55 CZ for November...

Russian Grain Markets: 22-28 August 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvesting Updates According to the Russian Ag Ministry's Department of Crop Production, Russi...

General Comments It has been rare for wheat to be the futures market leader recently, but that is exactly what happened today. After five straight losing d...

Eggs Rule Mexico has announced a substantial increase in the duty free egg import quota from the U.S. An avian influenza outbreak has shortened domestic su...

Grain and soybean futures markets seem to have hit something of a vacuum. They have lost direction, at least temporarily, and they have become rather dull...

News Updates There was not too much grain trade activity in North Africa and the Middle East in the past week due to the Eid holidays following Ramadan.The...

Biotech Facts versus Organic Kills The battle over Proposition 37 in California that would require labeling of food products produced using biotechnology 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...

General Comments Overnight trading was muted with prices mostly mixed with trade on both sides of the previous closes. Volumes were low, and a lack of inte...

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) recently argued (see WPI 23 August) that one reason it would be a bad idea to waive the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)...

Back in October 2010, the Federal Reserve undertook Operation Twist, whereby it sold $400 million in short-term bonds (maturities of three years or less) i...

The next major USDA reports are scheduled to be released on Wednesday, 12 September. These will include new crop production estimates and the revised month...

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 Republican Convention is getting underway in Tampa, and while party platforms are largely ignored documents after the meeting is over, they make for go...

Wheat Shortage Despite Huge Procurement India's wheat production for 2011/12, according to the July update from the government of India's (GOI) Ministry of...

General Comments Markets started the week very firm Sunday evening, with November soybeans again setting new all-time price highs. Corn and wheat were also...

General Comments Wheat, corn and soybean marketers were all very firm in the evening session and held most of those gains until prices started to falter ar...

The most important question for these markets over the next six to 12 months will be how the massive job of rationing corn and soybean demand gets accompli...

Republican presidential Mitt Romney yesterday released a 21-page "comprehensive" energy policy plan to "achieve North American energy independence by 2020...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his proposed U.S. energy policy this week and it is no different than President Obama's in that both...

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 Russian and Ukrainian wheat remain the cheapest origins by far. It may sound illogical that the Russian wheat is so cheap after all the bulli...

Argentina Still Subsidizes Biodiesel Exports Contrary to earlier reports, Argentina has not completely eliminated its export incentives for biodiesel. Whil...

Glass Half-Full Argentina Yesterday we speculated about a positive that could come out of Argentina's challenge to U.S. barriers to imports of its lemons a...

Drought Effect: Freezer Busting Inventories Because of the drought, drought-fueled corn and feed prices, and lost pasture, more beef and pork is being push...

General Comments Markets took another breather today. After early gains could not be sustained, prices began to slide lower. The change in direction create...

Corn Argentine corn FOB market premiums are weak and there is a lack of demand. Spot shipments (August and September) are offered at 5-10 cents/bushel lowe...

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...

Back when we first got involved in the grain business and in grain merchandizing, grain export activity was not very important to futures markets. Or perha...

Russian Grain Markets: 15-21 August 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvesting and Planting Updates According to Petr Chekmarev, director of the Russian Ag Minist...

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...

Ineffective Aid U.S. Agency for International Development official Nancy Lindborg says the Sahel region of Africa is in the midst of long-term drought and...

General Comments Minutes of the Federal Reserve Bank's August Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC) meeting were released today, and they show a growing til...

General Comments With a barrage of tweets from participants on Pro Farmer's Midwest crop tour commenting on how bad crops look, futures prices had nowhere...

  News Updates Ramadan has finished and all Muslim countries are currently celebrating Eid-Al-Fitr — the festival of breaking the fast. Most off...

Corn prices are creeping back up again, nearing the $8.43 record price set earlier this month. That's being viewed as a signal that not enough demand has 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...

Crop Insurance Spike U.S. farmers have been steadily increasing the land they have under crop insurance coverage, and based on research published in the Jo...

Commodity Analytics shows the most recent data for grain export sales and shipments along with historic patterns. Current deviations from historic norms po...

With all that is going on in U.S. and world agriculture, we feel out of touch after having been away for just a few days. Good or bad, we are in a period o...

The corn and soybean crops in the U.S. are bordering on disastrous this year because of the major drought that affected nearly every part of the Corn Belt...

Russia at U.S. Political Conventions Russia's trade regime officially changes over to the WTO's better standards on Wednesday, but U.S. industry cannot ben...

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has been trying to remove the word "navigable" from the language of the Clean Water Act (CWA) as it refer...

General Comments Markets were just slightly higher to start Sunday evening but gradually built on that early firmness and were strong by the time the sun r...

India's Economic Growth: Drastic Need for Reforms The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) last week pegged India's GDP forecast at 6.7 perce...

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 Markets were quietly strong much of today, and funds were noted as light buyers. There was no special or fresh news today. Financial marke...

The United States is agreeing with France and current G-20 leader Mexico to possibly hold the first meeting of the rapid response forum created as a result...

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 U.S. drought has pushed corn and soybean prices to new all-time highs following the drought-reduced production in Brazil and Argentina. Problems in Rus...

The USDA blog has much of its space dedicated to food inflation and the drought. One entry, dated 10 August, is USDA's response to the current question on...

Milling Wheat The Black Sea milling wheat market is slightly weaker in sympathy with Chicago and Matif due to the slow demand. Despite the bullish stories...

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...

We might have to reduce corn acres in the U.S. in 2013 because of a potential planting seed shortage. Seed was very tight in 2012 because of the big incr...

Politics of Ethanol The Des Moines Register chides President Obama for visiting Iowa and highlighting his differences with Republican rival Mitt Romney ove...

RFS Waiver on the Clock, or Will Be Soon Southern Governors Mike Beebe (D-Arkansas) and Beverly Purdue (D-North Carolina) this week have joined Maryland an...

Argentina Reportedly Pressuring Grain Exporters to Sell Stocks I wrote on Tuesday that the Argentine government's dire need for tax revenue and foreign exc...

General Comments Markets were mixed in the night session with soybeans trading as much as 13-15 cents lower at one point. The tenor of the markets changed...

It seems ironic that established government policy can have the opposite effect of its stated objectives. For example, the vast majority of congressional r...

General Comments Demand rationing markets can be particularly difficult to trade. Greater emphasis needs to be placed on factors such as basis because the...

Russian Grain Markets: 7-14 August, 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvest As of 14 August, grains and leguminous crops have been harvested on 21,062,800 hectare...

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 Argentine corn basis levels are weaker this week, especially for spot shipments (August and September) where seller's ideas are in the -65 CZ to -70 C...

Shorting the Market The Thai Ministry of Commerce is reportedly assembling its ASEAN counterparts to negotiate the creation of a trading cartel in rice. Ap...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE At long last Egypt was back in the wheat market, validating the forecast of several experts. Egypt's GASC bought 120,000 MT of Ru...

The August WASDE confirmed -- if there was any doubt -- that drought-reduced production of U.S. soybeans and corn in 2012 absolutely will require that dome...

The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) last Friday held its convention in Omaha, Nebraska. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke to ACE members shortly...

Argentina Eliminates All Export Incentives for Biodiesel Last Friday the Argentine government in a surprise move acted to immediately raise the export tax...

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 and soy markets tried hard to make it a "Turnaround Tuesday." Prices firmed slightly in overnight trade, and this continued into the...

All the Wrong Hunger Targets Owen Barder with the Center for Global Development pegs it when he points to the errors in policymakers' approaches to global...

Parliamentary Panel Junks GM Crops, Asks For Complete Ban Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of Bt cotton's introduction in India is the release of a par...

Sugar Undermines TPP Former U.S. agricultural trade negotiator Jim Grueff says U.S. aggies are already ambivalent about a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a...

The long awaited August WASDE has come and gone. Even though USDA's surveys confirmed huge yield and production losses for corn and soybeans that exceeded...

This weekend, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to be his vice presidential running mate...

General Comments Despite the tightest potential supply/demand situation facing U.S. grains and soybeans in many, many years, grain and soy markets found ve...

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...

Somewhere in the White House and the USDA cage, people realized that USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack's invitation to speak to the American Coalition for Ethanol...

General Comments Corn got all dressed up today and had nowhere to go. The WASDE report was bullish in comparison to the average analysts' expectations. Pri...

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 remains quiet due to slow demand from the major destinations. The Russian government has decided not to in...

Bulls looking for affirmation in today's WASDE report were not disappointed. USDA slashed its corn and soybean production estimates. While the market alrea...

WASDE Waiver Watch To start the clock for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to consider an RFS waiver, such a request would have to come from...

Fairly Good Exports Sales Last Week Today's USDA export sales report indicated U.S. exporters had fairly good sales last week. The report showed 105,200 MT...

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 law of unintended consequences endlessly reveals itself in public policymaking, particularly in areas where it is most market distorting. Mandating the...

General Comments The "official" beginning of the global financial crisis occurred five years ago today in 2007 when the ECB was forced to pump 95 billion e...

It is certain that the most pervasive common thread throughout USDA's August WASDE will be that world supplies of wheat, coarse grains and oilseeds are shr...

Corn Argentine corn basis levels are now weaker than they were in our last report, especially those for August and September shipments, where there is big...

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 It seems fitting as we await USDA's yield and production estimates for 2012's drought-stricken corn and soybean crops that the National We...

Farm Bill Prospects House Republican leaders balked at bringing the farm bill to the floor before the August recess, but at least three subsequent developm...

Russian Grain Markets: 1-6 August 2012 GRAINS AND PRODUCTS Harvest As of 3 August, Russia harvested 1.5 MMT less grain and leguminous crops than it did 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...

Brazil to Sharply Increase Biotech Plantings The Brazilian consulting group Celeres is predicting that Brazilian farmers will use biotech varieties to plan...

By now nearly everyone involved in agriculture or in activities even remotely connected with agriculture is aware that USDA will release a crop report (the...

Far, far away from scorched corn fields in the Midwest, removed from Chicago, the financial center of commodity-based industries, beyond the horizon from W...

Drought Implications The drought has brought with it a variety of explanations and proposed solutions. The Great Drought of 2012 A drought is loosely defin...

News Updates EGYPT UPDATE The new government in Egypt has issued a formal invitation to the IMF to resume talks on the $3.2 billion loan. The finance minis...

Soft Drink Taxes Need Study New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stirred a wide array of opinions when he suggested limiting soft drink sales to 12 ounces...

With drought afflicting crops elsewhere, many are assessing crop conditions in the Black Sea Region, and particularly in Russia. Rumor has it that, like tw...

General Comments We so often cite the trade's anticipation of certain reports from USDA that it has probably become a cliche. However, it would be hard to...

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...

USDA will release its August production estimate and supply/demand (WASDE) numbers this Friday, 10 August. This might be one of the most important producti...

While the war wages over the decision to waive the ethanol Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), biodiesel recently has enjoyed three big wins.The Senate Appropri...

Sugar Prices Rally, Exports to Take a Hit The government finally has declared drought in at least four states: Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtr...

General Comments For the first time this growing season, the trade came back to work Sunday evening and noticed that weekend rain across the Corn Belt was...

Optics or Impact If the perceived seriousness of the U.S. drought is reflected in this Friday's USDA WASDE report, pressure will increase on policymakers t...

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...

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...

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...

SEA Case Study Two Southeast Asian neighbors are going to provide yet another example of which economic model works better: market capitalism or protection...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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'...

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...

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

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 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...

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

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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, 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...

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...

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

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

"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...

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

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/...

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

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...

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),...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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...

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

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...

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

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: 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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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 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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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 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...

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 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 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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...