Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. grain trader and processor Archer Daniels Midland and French biotech company InnovaFeed announced plans on Thursday to build the world’s largest insect protein plant at Decatur, Illinois. The announcement comes amid rising global feed grain prices and tightening supplies, and as more companies work toward reducing the carbon footprint of […] Read more
ADM, InnovaFeed to build world’s biggest insect protein plant in Illinois
Storm and drought impacts on Iowa corn seen in crop tour
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — A clearer picture of damage to crops in the path of last week’s derecho storm emerged on Wednesday, as crop scouts on an annual tour scrambled across blown-over corn stalks and wind-battered soybean fields in Illinois and Iowa. Iowa officials on Tuesday warned much of the crop in the path of […] Read more
U.S. grains: Corn futures tread water as Midwest’s farmers assess storm damage
Analysts still expect large U.S. harvest
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn futures ended flat on Tuesday as traders and analysts predicted that farmers will harvest a large crop despite a damaging storm that tore across the U.S. Midwest on Monday. Soybean futures were steady, while wheat futures rose on technical buying. Farmers are assessing the damage to their corn from […] Read more
Smithfield to close Illinois pork facility
Workers test positive for COVID-19
Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — World’s largest pork processor Smithfield Foods said Friday it will suspend operations at its Monmouth, Illinois pork processing facility next week after some employees tested positive for COVID-19, adding to already strained U.S. meat supplies. The news of some of the company’s 1,700 employees at the plant testing positive comes a day after […] Read more
CBOT weekly outlook: Market stuck in range until acreage report
Reading Time: < 1 minute MarketsFarm — Until the U.S. Department of Agriculture issues its next acreage report, expect the Chicago Board of Trade to remain stuck within a range, a trader said. “Until the August report and the USDA verifies the plenty of preventative planting acres, and if August happens to be hot and dry side, I can expect […] Read more
U.S. farmers face devastation following Midwest floods
Reading Time: 4 minutes Winslow, Neb./Chicago | Reuters — Midwestern farmers have been gambling they could ride out the U.S.-China trade war by storing their corn and soybeans anywhere they could — in bins, plastic tubes, in barns or even outside. Now, the unthinkable has happened. Record floods have devastated a wide swath of the Farm Belt across Iowa, […] Read more
Early winter weather puts U.S. safe-haven corn planting in doubt
Reading Time: 3 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Illinois farmer Brent Johnson had planned to bump up his corn acreage by 10 per cent in 2019 and plant fewer soybeans as a way to shelter himself from the lower soy prices caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with China. But some early winter storms caused him to […] Read more
U.S. grains: Corn firms as rainy Midwest outlook threatens harvest
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn futures firmed on Thursday on concerns that several days of rainy weather expected across the U.S. Midwest could disrupt harvesting of what is forecast to be a bumper U.S. crop. Soybeans also drew support from the wet forecast, but shed gains late in the session in a technical selling […] Read more
Brandt to buy first U.S. manufacturing plant
Reading Time: 2 minutes A Canadian farm and industrial equipment manufacturer is preparing to set up its first U.S. base to make farm equipment for U.S. corn and soybean growers. The Regina-based Brandt Group, whose farm equipment lines include loaders and skid steers as well as augers, conveyors and vacuums for grain handling, announced Friday it will buy a […] Read more
Monsanto, BASF herbicides strain states with damage complaints
Reading Time: 4 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. farmers have overwhelmed state governments with thousands of complaints about crop damage linked to new versions of herbicides, threatening future sales by manufacturers Monsanto and BASF. Monsanto is banking on herbicides using dicamba — and seeds engineered to resist it — to dominate soybean production in the U.S., the world’s […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
