It is becoming clearer every year that U.S. farmers might be headed towards planting just two major crops: corn and soybeans. Consider the following:
Winter wheat acres in 2017 were the smallest since USDA started keeping records in 1919. Based on current prices and returns per acre, they will be smaller again in 2018. Hard red spring wheat and durum wheat acres also continue to decline. We expect northern Plains farmers to again plant fewer acres of both crops in 2018 as there is simply no economic incentive to plant wheat of any class.
Barley acreage and production are also rapidly declining. Production is down nearly 40 percent in the past two years, and malting contracts have grown cheap with limited availability. It has beco...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...
