Will Secor, Grain and Farm Supply economist for CoBank Knowledge Exchange, is concerned about the US agronomy and farm supplier outlook for the rest of the year. Last year’s poor fall weather, this year’s wet spring with regionally catastrophic floods and stressed farm balance sheets weigh on the outlook for those supplying farmers with the … Read More

Robust demand provides incentives for continued growth of the US livestock sector over the next 10 years, said the USDA’s Agriculture Outlook Board in its latest 10-year outlook for US agriculture. Despite expected declining revenues over the next 10 years, red meat and poultry production were expected to increase over the projection period, the report … Read More

The annual peak for slaughter steer prices may have just passed, according to USDA/Agricultural Marketing Service data. If the peak isn’t in already, it should come about the last week of April or the first week of May, the data show.  But even then, it likely won’t be much higher than the most recent weekly … Read More

Large commodity investment funds, known as managed money, extended their collective net long live cattle position to another record high during the week ended last Tuesday.  It was their 18th week of larger net long positions in 19 weeks. The data came in the weekly Commitments of Traders report from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, … Read More

The Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report from the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service Thursday was interpreted bearishly by futures traders and could be the nexus for even more price pressure in coming weeks, a market analyst said. The US inventory of all hogs and pigs on March 1 was a record high for period at … Read More

Unless things change, there are likely to be few, if any cattle deliveries against the Apr live cattle futures contract. The basis, or the difference between the cash price and the expiring futures price, is too narrow for many producers to go to the trouble and expense of delivering against the futures contract.  In short, … Read More

Even before the shank of the winter’s furry with its heavy snow and subsequent flooding, more Minnesota farmers were ready to give up after 2018, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ Fourth-Quarter Agricultural Conditions Survey. Given the role of strong harvests in bolstering farm incomes, some lenders expressed concerns about that luck running … Read More