Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. soybean futures rose on Wednesday as the market rebounded from its lowest level in nearly a month amid lingering concerns about risks from unfavourable crop weather in South America. Corn and wheat futures hit their lowest levels in more than two weeks under pressure from large supplies and technical selling. […] Read more
U.S. grains: Soybeans rise from one-month low
U.S. grains: Corn nears one-month low after USDA raises harvest estimate
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago/Reuters – U.S. corn futures slid on Wednesday to their lowest level in almost a month and soybean futures weakened after the U.S. Department of Agriculture raised its domestic harvest estimates from already record-high levels. In a monthly report, the USDA said farmers will grow 15.226 billion bushels of corn this year, with an average […] Read more
CME mulls cash settlement for volatile cattle market
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– CME Group is considering switching to a cash settlement process for its live cattle futures, a managing director said Thursday, as traders continued to complain about extreme volatility. Dave Lehman, managing director of commodity research and product development, said discussions about the new settlement procedure were part of an all-encompassing review […] Read more
Millions of chickens reported dead in Hurricane Matthew floods
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Flooding from Hurricane Matthew has killed up to five million poultry birds in North Carolina, most of them chickens, the state’s top environmental official said Wednesday. Donald van der Vaart, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, also told Reuters that some pits that hold hog waste on farms […] Read more
Smithfield to shutter major hog plant against Matthew
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Smithfield Foods will shutter its hog processing facility, the world’s largest, on Saturday to protect employees in North Carolina from Hurricane Matthew, industry sources said on Friday, as farmers braced for the storm’s potential lashing. Matthew has fueled concerns about the safety of livestock and farm workers along the coast from […] Read more
U.S. grains: Corn jumps on positioning, new signals of feed demand
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn futures jumped Friday on quarter-end positioning and government crop data that signalled livestock producers had not cut back on feeding the grain in favour of wheat, as some traders had expected. Prices rose after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a quarterly crop report, said 1.738 billion bushels of […] Read more
USDA requires meat packers to report online cattle auction deals
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday it will require meat packers to report cattle purchases they make through online auctions to the agency starting next week, a move that stoked traders’ hopes for more transparent markets. USDA will begin including transactions from auctions on the Fed Cattle Exchange in pricing […] Read more
Agricultural merger mania fuels fears among small seed sellers
Reading Time: 3 minutes Chicago | Reuters — The U.S. Justice Department is looking into concerns that global consolidation among major seed and agricultural chemical companies may squeeze supplies of the building blocks for widely used genetically modified seeds, a farm group told Reuters. The department has asked the American Soybean Association for details about how small and independent […] Read more
Devastating bird flu strain found in duck in Alaska
Reading Time: < 1 minute Chicago | Reuters –– The type of avian flu that led to the deaths of about 50 million U.S. chickens and turkeys last year has been found in the country for the first time in 14 months, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday. USDA said it detected the H5N2 strain of the disease in […] Read more
Soybeans trip up top traders, prompt rare offer to U.S. farmers
Reading Time: 4 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Two of the world’s biggest agricultural trading houses bungled crop sales they made on behalf of U.S. farmers this year because of what one described as “unique” price moves for soybeans, prompting both to take rare steps to keep disgruntled customers. Every year, hundreds of U.S. farmers trust major grain traders, […] Read more