The U.S. National Weather Service says that the nation has just experienced the wettest 12 months in the 124 years of the agency’s recordkeeping. Last month was the wettest May on record and the second wettest of all recorded months since 1895. As a result, a wide swath of land is unable to be planted to the principle crop of corn. What is being sown is confusion, much of it with its basis in government policy.
The 1996 Farm Bill is known informally as the “Freedom to Farm Act.” For the first time, the government made direct payments to farmers regardless of what seeds they put into the ground. The concept lost support within two years as weather and the Asian financial crisis wreaked havoc, and the fixed payments prove...
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...
