Let’s call the March 31st USDA report the kickoff to the new growing season’s marketing year. Yes, markets are continuous and fluid, but this first glimpse of planting intentions for the U.S. is, for some, the first report in a while that really gets interesting. This week, RealAgriculture editor, Lyndsey Smith, is joined by Jon… Read More
Category: Hedging
There are good times and there are bad financial times for cattle producers. So far 2014 has been a period of very positive margins. As feeder and live cattle prices have soared higher, the Canadian Dollar and feed costs have lowered quite rapidly. This has put pressure on feedyards to find additional financing requirements in… Read More
After skipping the October update due to the U.S. government shutdown, this morning’s USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report was much anticipated by traders and farmers alike. While bearish news abounded ahead of the report, especially on the corn side, many were hoping that added yield would be balanced by decreased acres… Read More
Bin-busting crops are never something to wish away, but the simple laws of supply and demand eventually come in to play when everyone has a lot of crop to sell. While that’s oversimplifying grain markets, the overall message is clear — decent quality wheat, corn and other grains are going to be easy to find… Read More
If you’re a farmer who didn’t do much forward selling in the last two years, you’ve likely been very happy with the outcome. If you haven’t priced crop for 2013-14 yet, however, it may not end up not having been such a wise plan. Many farmers are harvesting a big crop right now, and, at… Read More
Several analysts and farmers were caught off guard by the significant move to the upside made in soybean, corn and associated markets earlier this week. Corn markets moved higher, yes, but the big boom came in the form of some significant weather risk weighing on the U.S. soybean crop. As you’ll hear in the SoundCloud… Read More
If you’ve been watching U.S. corn and soy acreage estimates closely, Monday’s production and acreage downsizing of the soybean crop may not come as a surprise. In fact, many farmers and analysts were scratching their heads at earlier figures given the poor growing conditions and late start both crops had. Still, when the USDA numbers… Read More
Hedging is a big scary word to many farmers. And it’s understandable — it’s an account that can flucuate significantly, making it seem like you’ve lost money. But, unlike speculators that never grow or store crops, farmers are in a unique position to use hedging as a low-risk price management tool. Why? Because as your… Read More
A cool start delayed corn planting in the U.S., so much so that there’s a rumoured 78 million acres of soybeans in the ground down south. A late start means the critical pollination period of the crop — a huge factor in determining yield — into the typically hot weeks of late July. While the… Read More
Farmers and analysts alike will be watching Friday’s USDA report for several reasons, and one of them will be the soybean acreage number. Poor planting weather in many corn-heavy U.S. states has many thinking the shift out of corn and into soybeans puts the total acres somewhere north of 77 million acres. If it’s below… Read More