Others would rather be outside working with cattle or at conferences learning the latest disease management techniques. 

If you’re not in the first category, your banker might know more about your farm financial indicators than you do. 

There are such long lists of financial indicators available it can be hard to know where to start. And once you calculate a financial ratio, how do you know if yours is “good”? 

If you don’t calculate these three financial ratios, your banker will. So, why not start by doing the math at home and taking them along to your next meeting?

Why financial indicators matter

Rising land prices have pulled up many farmers’ net worth statements. 

“There is not an equity issue out in farm country. Most operators are holding land that has appreciated well,” says Craig Macfie, founder of consulting firm Spring CFO (link to www.springcfo.com). Macfie has seen all kinds of farm financial statements through his consulting work, as an accountant, as a past CFO for Monette Farms and through his experience as a farmer in Crystal Springs, Sask.

But lenders care about more than net worth. Lenders want to know if your assets are generating profits, and if you’re able to repay loans. 

In some banks, Macfie says, “the bank credit department is God, and your bank relationship manager is the Pope.” That is, the banker you meet with doesn’t typically have authority to make lending decisions without support from someone in the credit department. 

When you need a loan, Macfie says, “You need the Pope on your side, advocating for you.” Your bank manager can tell the credit department what a strategic farmer you are, but the credit department is still going to want to see the numbers. 

Your financial indicators will have to carry the day. 

The lenders’ perspective

Macfie suggests three key financial indicators can show your farm’s ability to repay loans. 

Roxane Lieverse is an executive vice president and the head of agricultural banking with Rabobank in Canada. When asked which financial indicators are important for lenders, she lists the same three indicators. 

The financial indicators these two professionals see as highly relevant to bankers are:

1. Working capital to expense ratio
2. Debt service coverage ratio
3. Debt to equity ratio

Together, these three indicators show lenders your farm’s recent financial performance and your farm’s ability to repay loans. 

1. Working capital to expense ratio 

What it measures: The working capital to expense ratio measures your farm’s ability to stay in business through the next production season. 

“It shows the actual working capital available for a producer to put in their crop, whatever it is they’re growing or producing,” Lieverse says.

How to calculate it:

First, calculate your working capital:

Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities

Where current assets equal assets that can be converted to cash within one year (e.g., bank accounts, inventory, prepaid expenses) and current liabilities that must be paid within a year (e.g., accounts payable, operating loans, rent payments, credit card debt, taxes).

Working Capital to Expense Ratio = Working Capital / Annual Operating Expenses

Some financial analysts use these same measures to calculate the Current Ratio, which compares current assets to current liabilities. 

Current Ratio = Current Assets / Current Liabilities

The current ratio can be used to measure short-term viability, but Lieverse and Macfie both find comparing working capital to annual expenses more intuitive. 

A “good” ratio for you depends on your strategy. 

If working capital is equal to annual farm expenses, your ratio is 1:1. “Your farm can finance next year’s crop,” Macfie says.

Many farms’ ratio is less than one. 

“Some farms put all of their working capital into more land and machinery, and that’s how they grow.” These farmers are using cash-on-hand to finance expansion, whether it’s land, machinery or equipment. “That works,” Macfie says, “until it doesn’t.”

If the working capital to expense ratio is too low, the farm will be short on cash, perhaps to the point of financing short-term inputs with expensive retail credit. 

“Once you maximize retail credit, there’s really no options besides refinancing or selling land,” Macfie says.

The safest approach is to keep your working capital to expense ratio well above 1:1. But this plan may not keep your money working hard enough. Maybe some capital could replace depreciated assets or repay high interest loans.

Macfie visualizes this ratio as a teeter-totter, with managers balancing cash on hand against re-investments. “The hard part is that balance.”

What does Macfie advise? “The easy advice is 50 percent,” Macfie says, noting that the ideal situation will always vary from farm to farm according to your strategy and your industry.

2. Debt service coverage ratio (DSCR)

What it measures: “Bankers are concerned that you can repay your debts,” Macfie says. “Why would you loan more money to someone who hasn’t shown recently that they can service debt? If your three- or five-year history doesn’t show you can service more debt, why would I give you more debt?”

The debt service coverage ratio compares your recent annual income to the size of your debt. 

How to calculate it:

DSCR = Income / Debt Service

Where income equals farm revenues (after taxes) minus operating expenses (excluding interest), plus off-farm income. Debt service equals payments on short-term and long-term loans, including principal and interest.

What is a good ratio? If your debt service coverage ratio is 1:1 or higher, you have enough income to pay your debt. A higher DSCR indicates higher profitability relative to debt.

Lieverse would like to see a ratio a little higher than 1:1. “Ideally above 1.25, but it’s very heavily dependent on the industry.” 

Rising interest rates will increase your debt costs, decreasing your DSCR. You could raise your DSCR by restructuring or paying down debt. 

A manager focused strictly on DSCR might turn down growth opportunities that require debt. The ideal ratio is the number that fits your strategy.

3. Debt to equity ratio (DER)

What it measures: The first two indicators on this list are more important to banks, says Lieverse, as they’re more relevant to day-to-day operations. The DER shows your long-term viability. “If there was a profitability concern, long-term, how could the producer sustain themselves?”  

How to calculate it:

DER = Total Liabilities / Total Shareholders Equity

Where total liabilities equals all short- and long-term debt and total shareholders equity equals total assets minus total liabilities.

Corporate balance sheets usually show long-term assets such as land and buildings at purchase price (book value). Updating asset values to current fair market prices makes the results more realistic (and probably more comforting). 

What is a good ratio? A low DER indicates a farm with flexibility to borrow money if opportunities arise. A farm with a high DER may have taken on debt to buy more land or may be in a financially vulnerable position.

While long-term customers may have some leeway, Macfie says, “Banks don’t care if you’re sitting on a bunch of land equity if the farm hasn’t been profitable in a few years.” 

You could raise your DER by selling land or equipment to repay loans. But unless downsizing is part of a long-term strategy, it may not be the ideal solution for you or your lender.

Take action to control financial indicators

Many aspects of farm financials are outside your control. If you find yourself with less-then-perfect ratios, here are four steps to take:

1. Develop good working relationships: “You can’t control the weather, but you can control having a good relationship with your banker and your accountant,” Macfie says. 
2. Timely financial statements: Your financial indicators may not be great, but they can still be timely. “You can control getting your bookkeeping to the accountant on time, so they can get it to the banker on time,” Macfie says.
3. Check your corporate year end: Ratios change depending on where you are in your annual production cycle. For example, if you’re a grain farmer with a July 31 year end, “the bank is testing your balance sheet at the worst time of year.” Your Working Capital to Expense ratio will be low, since your current assets are still out in the field. Re-calculate that ratio on October 31, when your barley is in the bin. 
4. Cut costs: If most of your financial indicators are grim, it’s time to look at your operation. “There are efficiencies to be found across the board on land, machinery, labour, agronomy and other operating expenses,” Macfie says. “Keep looking.”

Looking to the future

Lieverse describes herself as a “disruptive agricultural banking leader.” But even innovative bankers still calculate ratios. 

“Banking has a bit of tradition to it,” she says.

Most of Lieverse’s clients are operational experts. “I very seldom stop at an operation where a producer doesn’t know their costs of inputs down to the acre and cannot articulate soil health with a degree of expertise.”

But some farmers have become experts in these areas at the expense of “soft side” business aspects. “Many farms have struggled in operational items related to finance and HR.”

When rising land prices create strong balance sheets, Lieverse says, “you can make mistakes and not really be forced to learn from them.” This probably won’t always be the case. “We’re going into a commodity cycle where margins are tightening. What are you doing to future-proof the farm?”

“Financial ratios are great because they tell us how the farm has done,” Lieverse says. “But what I’m equally interested in is hearing from producers about what they’re going to do. Financial ratios are about looking in the rearview mirror. But I know that operators are driving looking out the window ahead.”

The post A guide to farm financial ratios appeared first on Country Guide.

Well, the tide is going out in primary producer agriculture. Who will be left with clothes on?

Is the shifting tide due to the highest cost of production ever? The changing policy discussions? The geopolitical factors that come with trade wars? Or just the fact that weather events are becoming more common?

Whatever it is, there’s definitely a shift.

Growing up I never realized how much agriculture was trailing other industries in terms of financial acumen. We could once obtain loans with looseleaf net worth statements and personal tax returns. The words “accrual,” “debt service” or “working capital” were not words frequently thrown around, much less understood by most famers. 

In my early years agriculture was not profitable, and land was traded for property taxes. 

How things have changed.

As 2025 progresses, indicators of change have appeared. Banks are tightening up on reporting and covenants. Farms are starting to see cracks in their financial foundations. Even agricultural educational institutions are taking notice. 

A colleague of mine once commented that he had to be careful when discussing financial acumen with farmers during his presentations as it was a “touchy” subject. Well, guess what? Touchy doesn’t pay the bills.

As farmers move into a new reality of financial requirements, let’s break down the non-negotiables when it comes to running your business.

Accrual financial statements

For the first time, this spring I had a conversation with a lender who refused a restructure due to lack of historical accrual reporting. 

It was almost a breath of fresh air. 

For years the industry has been trying to push producers towards understanding and using accrual reporting over cash. Accrual allows the farm to identify if it’s profitable, not just if there’s money in the bank to pay the next bill. This is not to say that cash doesn’t have a place in key performance indicators, it just cannot be the only conversation.

Our partners to the south have been trying to push this standard for 30 years. Ever since the 1980s agriculture crisis, U.S. regulators and standards boards made it a key objective. But they have made little headway. 

I would like to think that Canada is closer but let’s say its efforts are the “best of the worst.” Over half of the primary producer industry has still not adopted accrual reporting and does not know if they are profitable year over year.

Call it the Holy Grail, but a true business requires accrual information throughout the year. Many of the farms we consult for now have internal controllers, monthly accrual reporting and know exactly where they stand in terms of profitability. 

This is how you can make decisions with no emotion, just data.

Budgets and projections

Budgeting is more of a spectrum than a destination. 

There are many factors that need to be considered when preparing a true projection that most fail to execute. The key areas of focus should be the following:

• Cost of production: The need to identify a farm’s true cost of production has never been greater. To move a step further you need to identify both an accrual and a cash number to appropriately market your product. One requires amortization (yes, this is a true cost as you are losing equity in your machines at a rapid pace per hour); the other needs debt payments as they are a cash drain and, depending on your leverage model, may be material. Overall, you need to identify a marketing plan that shows a sustainable return per bushel and per acre.
• Monthly burn rate: Without a monthly cash flow (preferably planned over an eighteen-month period) your ability to market falls only on price. For most farms, cash flow, logistics and many other factors go into when and how you market your products — even more so on livestock operations where you don’t have steady cash flow throughout the year. Knowing your monthly cash out-flows will help you make longer-term decisions.
• Capital planning: The time to decide on equipment and infrastructure is not when the salesperson sits down for a coffee. Most progressive farms create capital plans years in advance and stick to them. In the past, operations bought equipment in good years and then held tight when times got tough. This doesn’t allow for any future strategy or plan; it is purely emotional buying. Know what you can afford, when machinery requires replacement and how this affects your profitability and banking.

Key performance indicators

It still amazes me how many producers have never read a commitment letter from their lenders. 

On many farms, financial institutions are the only thing between them affording to put a crop in and calling the auctioneers. Agriculture is an equity rich-cash poor business and, as such, the ability to understand your key banking and internal ratios is more important than ever.

Following are the three indicators every operator should know at any point in their day:

• Working capital: How much cash you have available to cover future costs. This could be working capital cash in a bank account or grain in the bin that can be easily converted to cash. Working capital is calculated by your current short-term assets less your obligations due over the next year. This ratio determines how easily you can make sales and procurement decisions and whether you can take the family out for dinner on a Sunday night.
• Debt service: The indicator of whether you can make enough cash to pay your debt. For non-farm individuals this would be your employment income compared to your mortgage and car loans. For farms, this is whether over a three-to-five-year period the farm creates enough cash to cover the current debt obligations. This determines whether your banker will give you more money or shut the tap off.
• Debt to tangible net worth: Are your assets larger than the debt you maintain? This is the least important indicator with your lenders, but often a covenant, nonetheless. This indicates whether you have left enough of your personal wealth in the business in comparison to the bank’s risk. This often only becomes a broader conversation if land values decline or if you are slowly taking large amounts of cash out to buy personal assets.

Every time agriculture enters a down cycle the industry pushes primary producers into positive change.

It is an interesting trend as it follows the concept that good times create soft people, and hard times create hard people. 

Whether 2025 continues to be the year where we see the industry force change, only time will tell. But as an individual who speaks with a significant number of farms every year, I sometimes hope for short-term pain to force a long-term change.

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This is for some very good reasons. Not only do risks grow with the scale and complexity of the operation, but so do the opportunities, and today’s farmers want to be poised to seize them.

In this business environment, Christopher Costain has a pitch to make. Costain is director of agriculture for BMO Commercial Bank, and says there’s a bigger role banks can play to help farms thrive through the highs and lows.

“Banks don’t just do lending,” says Costain. “Our services are vast. We have a lot more to offer. If we’re only selling the loan, we’re selling you short.”

And farmers are ready, he says. “In a lot of cases, farmers want to be challenged and have robust discussions about their strategies, whether it’s interest rate strategy or investment decisions.

“Farmers don’t want a lender that just nods and sets up the loan — they want one that is thoughtful, and willing to challenge them and be challenged.”

What will you hear? Below are tips for today’s high-performance farms from a few of Canada’s top bankers.

Build resiliency

BMO’s Costain says successful farmers understand their risk exposure at all levels, from production risk to market and interest rate risk.

They also take risk off the table by locking in income through contracts and by fixing expenses like interest rates, and they excel at articulating their risk management strategies to capital partners.

For farmers like these, the next focus is to build resilience, “so whatever the strategy, they have a little extra in their balance sheet that they can leverage, or they have working capital that’s available if they have challenges,” says Costain.

Such farmers, he says, ensure they have working capital options, whether that’s land that can be borrowed against or assets that are not critical to their operation that can be liquidated if an opportunity or challenge comes up.

Dave Klingenberg, senior relationship manager for Farm Credit Canada, agrees that adequate working capital and operating funds are critical in light of inflation and increasing interest rates.

“Risks exist for a farmer of any size; they are amplified when the size of the operation grows,” says Klingenberg.

That makes it wise to stay on top of renewals and potential increases in debt service obligations with rising rates. And it also makes it smart to learn about new tools.

“More farming operations are being encouraged to participate in transactions that involve derivatives,” Klingenberg says. “It’s important that producers understand the transactions they are getting involved in to use these tools appropriately to their benefit with a managed risk.”

Costain says if producers are facing high interest rates, they need levers they can pull to meet their requirements. This can be a touchy subject for some, he says, but it’s important that farmers have a strategy in terms of unencumbered assets.

“There’s a tendency in the industry to go short in terms of interest rates,” he says. But products exist to hedge both interest and foreign exchange risk.

When it comes to sustained growth, Trevor Sproule, head of agricultural banking for Canadian Western Bank, says it may also be smart to consider bank syndications.

“Most financial institutions have single-client hold limits, so by leveraging a multi-bank syndication, additional capital can be accessed,” Sproule says. “Another avenue for continued growth is the use of joint ventures that allow multiple farm operations (could be both family or even close neighbours) to leverage resources and knowledge from multiple operations.”

This could include shared equipment, an enhanced land base for different crop rotations, and dual management coverage in some areas in case of death or illness.

Focus on human resources

Klingenberg says when top-performing farmers talk to their bankers today, a growing topic is finding and maintaining the right people for operational success.

It’s critical not to neglect human resources, he says. But it’s just as crucial to encourage development and celebrate employees’ success.

“It takes good people working together to keep these operations successful,” says Klingenberg. “It’s also important to ensure your people know they are supported in protecting their mental health to help prevent burnout.”

Similar advice then applies to succession planning. When today’s farms get down to building their farm transition strategies, it’s important to plan for worst-case scenarios like disability or death not only of the ownership group, but also key employees.

As important as it is to create a strategic plan, Klingenberg adds that the plan should be agile enough to account for necessary change — or unexpected developments.

Such a plan means the top-performing farm can gain more from their bankers and financial advisors, who will have a better understanding of the intended direction of the operation and can work better with the farm team to see the big picture and buy into the process of getting there.

Another piece of advice?

Hire or appoint a chief financial officer, says Sproule. “Have a full-time or fraction CFO in place to manage the cash flow of the business and ensure they remain within covenants,” he suggests. “The CFO should be proactive in identifying operational challenges or cash-flow issues that have the potential to arise in the future and address them in a timely manner.”

Rely on your advisors, but challenge them too

In today’s agriculture, it goes without saying that high-performing farmers already have good relationships with their farm advisors.

Leading farmers should understand how to get the most from these relationships, says Scott Preston, director and team leader of commercial banking for CIBC. “My best advice would be to regularly update your advisors,” he says. “It’s also easier for your plans to pivot, if needed, when everyone is aligned. The stronger your relationships are with your advisors, the easier it is for you to execute on your strategic plan.”

Sproule agrees: “From our side, as advisors, we are always looking to see what a farm’s year-to-date results are looking like compared to projections,” he says. “This allows us to have a conversation with these high-performing farmers on potential issues or even opportunities that have not been addressed or planned for during the annual review process or last credit submission. It is our job to be proactive in this and ensure challenges are dealt with.”

Sproule also agrees that the farmer’s openness to advice should go beyond accounting, banking and legal experts. “Make use of advisors in all parts of the operations,” he says. “This means having a sounding board for everything from crop rotation to fertilizer/chemical use to capital purchases to debt structure. That’s the value of working with advisors that work with a relationship approach — they have their own network of experts they can call on for support when needed.”

It’s important to remember that every farming operation is unique, Preston adds. The gap between smaller farms and large operations can be significant, but these days, some large operations are run like smaller-scale farms, while some smaller-scale clients have highly sophisticated business structures.

Regardless of size, the thing successful operations have in common is that they view their advisors as key contributors of advice and guidance. “They have open dialogue, ask questions and share their short- and long-term ambitions,” says Preston.

Costain says BMO’s Canadian farm clients excel at dealing with their challenges unique to their landscape. “Our producers take advantage of risk management programs that are offered, as well as market opportunities,” he says.

They can also be incredibly community-minded.

“It sometimes blows me away how many producer organizations our farmers participate in, how many they support, (and) how freely they offer their support. I think they do an exceptional job of that. They help neighbours. That comes back in spades.

“They take that rural mentality to the boardroom with them and it’s part of their key metric to success.”

– This article was originally published in the October 2023 issue of Country Guide.

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With 13 days remaining until the expiry of the deal, which has allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s invasion, Moscow said there had been no progress on any of its key demands, including the banking issue.

The Financial Times reported on Monday that the European Union was considering a proposal to allow Russia’s Rosselkhozbank to set up a subsidiary that could connect to SWIFT.

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the idea as “deliberately unworkable,” saying it would take many months to set up such a unit and another three months to connect to SWIFT.

She also rejected a U.N. attempt to create an alternative payment channel between Rosselkhozbank and U.S. bank JP Morgan.

“There is no real replacement for SWIFT, and cannot be,” Zakharova said in a statement.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said on Monday she was not confident the grain deal would be renewed.

“The U.N. is doing all it can and we will do all we can. We’ve already worked very closely with the City of London to enable a very complex payment system for grain in order to make it work and continue to get food on people’s tables,” she said.

Russia says the severing of the bank’s access to SWIFT is one of the obstacles facing its own exports of food and fertilizer, and that it cannot keep renewing the Black Sea deal unless those issues are addressed.

‘Fertilizer crunch’

The stakes are high. The United Nations says the deal has so far allowed the export of more than 32 million metric tonnes of food from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports to 45 countries on three continents.

It describes the Black Sea grain deal and the efforts to facilitate Russian grain and fertilizer exports as “a lifeline for global food security.”

Any disruption or halt to such trade could aggravate a food crisis in the poorest countries and push global prices higher. Since March 2022, global food prices have dropped by 22%, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Russia has made previous threats to quit the deal, but its rhetoric has hardened since then.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Tuesday it was “obvious there are no grounds” to extend the deal beyond July 17 and that Russia was doing everything necessary for all ships covered by the deal to leave the Black Sea before that date.

It also said the deal had delivered Ukrainian grain to “well-fed” countries but failed to help those most in need.

The five poorest countries — Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia — received only 2.6 per cent of the grain shipped, it said, while the situation regarding Russian grain and fertilizer exports had “continued to worsen.”

The U.N. said the World Food Programme has bought more than 700,000 tonnes of grain under the Black Sea deal for aid operations in those countries — matching the volumes it procured from Ukraine in 2021.

But it has acknowledged that a “fertilizer crunch remains a reality for farmers in certain developing countries, against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis.”

The U.N. said it is continuing to work on ways to facilitate Russian fertilizer exports including: a trade finance platform with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank); facilities related to banking and insurance; and the resumption of key transshipment routes for fertilizer and ammonia.

— Reporting for Reuters by Felix Light and Olzhas Auyezov; writing by Mark Trevelyan and Michelle Nichols.

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With the bank under sanctions, the move aims to safeguard the Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets, the newspaper said.

The European Commission had no comment, while the Kremlin, in response to a question about the report, said it had nothing to announce about the deal’s implementation.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative for an initial 120 days last July to help tackle a global food crisis worsened by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain exporters. It has been extended three times since but is due to expire later this month.

More than 32 million tonnes of mostly corn and wheat have been exported by Ukraine under the deal.

Moscow reiterated on Monday it was pessimistic about the prospects for renewing the deal because no progress had been made in implementing accompanying agreements that pertain to Russian exports.

There was little immediate reaction in global grain markets on Monday with wheat prices virtually unchanged.

“There is general belief in the market that the Ukrainian shipment deal will not be extended unless Russia gets substantive concessions,” one European grains trader said.

“Easing the banking sanctions would be a quick method of giving Russia something,” the trader said, adding there remained many doubts about whether the deal would be extended.

Russia last week said that it saw no reason to extend the grain deal because the West had acted in an “outrageous” way over the agreement, though it assured poor countries that Russian grain exports would continue.

‘Creative ways’

Moscow’s plan, proposed through U.N.-brokered talks, would let the bank unit handle payments related to grain exports, the paper said, citing unnamed sources.

The new unit would be allowed to use the SWIFT global financial messaging system, which was closed to the largest Russian banks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it added.

The U.N. declined to comment on the FT report.

“I don’t think it would help me to talk in any detail about what the U.N. is doing,” Deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Monday,

He added that U.N. officials had been in touch with “a number of nations, including European nations, to find creative ways in which exports of food and fertilizer from the Russian Federation could be could be expedited.”

Responding to the Financial Times report, Ukraine’s foreign ministry ambassador at large, Olha Trofimtseva, said the EU wanted “to somehow facilitate the grain deal.

“On the one hand, any opportunities for agricultural exports are good. On the other hand, making concessions to a blackmailer means encouraging him to continue blackmailing,” she wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“It is a well-known axiom: a blackmailer does not stop if you fulfil his demands. He just comes up with new demands.”

As two of the world’s top agricultural producers, Russia and Ukraine are major players in grain and oilseed markets ranging from wheat and barley to rapeseed and sunflower oil. Russia is also dominant in the fertilizer market.

Apart from the restoration of SWIFT access, Russia is also seeking resumption of supplies of farm machinery and parts as well as the removal of curbs on insurance and reinsurance.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bangalore; additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels and Nigel Hunt in London and Michelle Nichols in New York.

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The most-active corn and soybean contracts closed weaker, while wheat rebounded slightly after finishing last week at a 20-month low.

Grains prices gyrated throughout the day as U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to do whatever was needed to avoid a potential banking crisis.

“If you want to know what the grains are going to do, keep an eye on the stock market, because that’s really been the pressure the last day or two,” said Mark Gold of U.S. consultancy Top Third Ag Marketing.

Wheat prices were also driven higher on views that Kansas’ crop is lagging, Gold added, while corn and soy prices dipped on crude oil being down.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service in a weekly crop report on Monday rated 17 per cent of the winter wheat in top producer Kansas in good to excellent condition.

The benchmark Chicago Board of Trade May soft red winter wheat contract rose 0.77 per cent to settle at $6.84-1/2 a bushel (all figures US$).

Soybean futures dipped by 15-3/4 cents to end at $14.91-1/4 a bushel, with the most-active contract hitting its lowest price since March 2. Corn also settled down 3-3/4 cents at $6.13-1/2 a bushel.

Earlier in the day, Russia suggested extending the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allows the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Renewal before the deal expires on Saturday could pressure prices of corn and wheat that come from the region down.

But Russia only suggested extending the agreement for a period of 60 days, half the term of the previous renewal.

— Reporting for Reuters by Cassandra Garrison in Chicago; additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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