- Ed Usset, University of Minnesota
- Mark Russo, EverStream.ai
From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market reported as the February, 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Curt Kimmel from agmarket.net and Ed Usset at University of Minnesota Extension. I'll bring you up to speed on some of the agricultural news for the afternoon, and we'll hear from Mark Russo too. He's with Everstream Analytics and talk about the weather forecast in Argentina and Brazil here in The United States as well.
Todd Gleason: 00:31Cold weather, by the way, returning to us in a big way fairly shortly. All of that coming up on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois, a public medium. It is public radio of the farming world online on demand at willag.org celebrating forty years of this program. It was established in services are made available to WIL by University of Illinois extension. March corn for the day settled at $4.88 and three quarters, six and three quarters higher than May 0 at Ford.
Todd Gleason: 01:08Ninety nine and three quarters, up six and three quarters in Dec. 0. 05/00 higher at $4.65 and a quarter. March 0 soybeans, ten fifty eight and a quarter, up 16 and a quarter. The May 0, 10/00 '70 02/00 03/00 quarters, up 15 and a quarter.
Todd Gleason: 01:21And Nov. 0 beans, ten sixty three and a quarter, up 12 and a quarter. Bean meal futures, up two sixty. The bean oil, 40¢ higher at $46.51. Soft red winter wheat at five sixty six and three quarters, up seven and a quarter for the March 0.
Todd Gleason: 01:34The hard red March 0 at $5.85 and 3 quarters, up 6 and a half cents. Live cattle futures finished the nearby at $200.15 off $2.15. The feeders at $2.70 $55.22 and a half lower, and lean hogs at $86.35, down $4 for the day. And the crude oil at $73.11 a barrel, up 57¢. Kurt Kimmel from agmarket.net now joins us from Nashville, Tennessee where they're in the midst of their conference.
Todd Gleason: 02:05Hi, Kurt. How are things going there today?
Curt Kimmel: 02:07Well, good afternoon, Todd. We're doing great. We we've got the the temperature getting close to 70 degrees. So, come back home, hopefully, bring a bring a little warm weather. And main thing is, market's a little warmer as we move through midday here versus where we were earlier this morning.
Curt Kimmel: 02:27So everything's falling in place.
Todd Gleason: 02:29Yeah. So you and I are talking early today because you're there at the conference in Nashville, and the markets, were lower based on the Trump tariffs. However, Mexico has decided to, bend those tariffs at least for a month, and that put a little pop in the marketplace. I suspect you've been talking a lot about the Trump administration and hearing from many folks as it's related to how to navigate the ups and downs and volatility of the coming marketplace. What have they told you and who have you heard from so far?
Curt Kimmel: 03:03Yeah. We've had we've had a fairly good lineup of speakers, Dalbasi, Ag Resource. And, we had, some other individuals here, talk about it. And basically it comes down to we're in a situation where there's just a lot of moving parts, just a lot of uncertainty, not just on the corn and bean price, but inputs, you know, potash and also in the livestock sector. There's just a lot of risk on the table and through here.
Curt Kimmel: 03:33But the bottom line is, one speaker said that if this thing does escalate a little bit more, there could be more Trump dollars, down the road. That was his opinion of it. So you just don't wanna sit back and do nothing and expect some help, a little longer term. The whole over all theme of the conference is volatility. When you look at the supply demand charts, the world supply demand things on soybeans, we got ample world supplies.
Curt Kimmel: 04:05Corn's a little tighter. So we need to keep an eye on, make sure these export markets stay together here and continue to see, good exports. And to help move this product, we need to have moved here by next fall.
Todd Gleason: 04:22Have you got another idea about how good the crops might be or much in trouble the crops might be in Argentina or Brazil? Have you heard anything about that during your conference?
Curt Kimmel: 04:32Yeah. We're gonna have a hands on, foot boots on the ground speaker here, shortly. That's the next item. And when you look at the big picture in the Southern Hemisphere, it's still gonna be fairly large. It's gonna be a record big crop, but not as large as what they were looking at before.
Curt Kimmel: 04:48So ideas are we're kind of scaling back. Eric Snodgrass was down here. He kinda sees the same type of, picture that he's been been promoting on that Southern Hemisphere, but not to shift gears from the Southern Hemisphere. He continues to be a little concerned about our growing season here as we go into 2025. I believe he's going to continue to give you the date of June 10.
Curt Kimmel: 05:13Is this time window to give you an idea of, what type of heat moisture we're gonna see here in the Upper Midwest. He's still watching this upper zone flow, straight across the upper third of the Midwest. He's a little concerned we're not seeing that, jet stream or the southern branch come up, and that that could create some very volatile weather situations as we go through the coming growing season.
Todd Gleason: 05:44Eric has been talking about that for some time, periodically on our programs here at Illinois Public Media. Great, person to listen to from time to time, of course. And when Eric steps into that world, he knows that he's stepping into a more speculative world, but he really bases it on facts. I take it he he he walked you through all of the facts, I suppose, and what that all looks like. So very interesting if you get a chance to see that.
Todd Gleason: 06:13What else have you learned while you're there?
Curt Kimmel: 06:15Well, the technical picture. Brian's split does a fantastic job on, the technical picture. He had a tough job today because, last night going home, we were looking at, gapping lower, and we did gap lower. And we in a situation where, the market was able to come back and hopefully close higher today. So it's a fairly good price reversal to the upside here.
Curt Kimmel: 06:41He's kinda given some optimism in the beans even though, fundamentally, this bean market is very negative on the supply side and maybe on the terror side of it. But the situation is, technically, he kinda thought if we could push through this two hundred two hundred day moving average, that the market have a little giddy up in it since everybody's kinda bearish. So he's, technical wise, we're seeing some optimism here as we head out this afternoon and head back to Central Illinois.
Todd Gleason: 07:10Yeah. I wondered whether you had made note of those gaps, and I saw that this morning. It was the oddest looking chart at least in the nearby March 0 futures, because there were two sets of gaps. Right?
Curt Kimmel: 07:22Yep.
Todd Gleason: 07:22And now they've all been filled. There's an outside up day running if we close that high, and we will have known that by the time, folks are listening to this. But it wasn't but that gave Brian some pause and everybody else as well to have to talk about that. Hey. One last thing.
Todd Gleason: 07:38I'm sure looking forward to the all day outlook at the beef house. That's Tuesday, March. That'll be about a month from now, so we'll have another month worth of time under our belt. And you'll be there, as well as many of the rest of the analysts, that you hear on the air at Illinois Public Media. Glad you'll be able to make it over.
Curt Kimmel: 07:55Boy, there's there's a lot of moving parts going on around the world, and I tell you what, the the whole picture could be quite a bit different by that time window when we get there. So don't fall asleep here. Pay attention.
Todd Gleason: 08:08Alright. Thank you very much.
Curt Kimmel: 08:09You bet. Take care, Todd.
Todd Gleason: 08:10You too. Kurt Kimmel is with agmarket.net and will join us on Tuesday, March, at the Beef House in Covington, Indiana for our all day ag outlook. You can too. It's simple and easy enough to do. Visit our website at willag.org, w I l l a g 0 r g to register today.
Todd Gleason: 08:28The cost is just $40 Mhmm. In today's agricultural news, farmers could get some relief at least from biofuels, as the new White House, EPA, and other agencies start to roll out policies. The Renewable Fuels Association is optimistic the new administration will help not hinder agriculture stock under the weight of high input cost and and low commodity prices. RFA's Troy Bradenkamp says the ethanol industry expects the president and his team to continue their past support for US biofuels.
Troy Bradenkamp: 09:05I think we'll have partners, within these agencies to help move that forward. And I know that the American farmer has a pretty good friend over there in the White House right now. So he is very keenly aware, acutely aware of how important they were in the Midwest to getting him elected, and and he's the kind of guy that doesn't forget
Todd Gleason: 09:25things like that. Some question that support given the president's avowed love for tariffs and their fear of another Trump trade war. But Grudenkamp says Trump is viewed as pro ethanol, which could help demand and prices for feedstocks.
Troy Bradenkamp: 09:39Anything that we can do to increase, the blend rate of ethanol into our liquid fuels is going to increase demand for corn, and that's gonna be a good thing for the American corn farmer.
Todd Gleason: 09:50Among those, permanent year round sales for e 15, though a legislative fix is now needed, a robust 47 z tax break for sustainable aviation fuel, and a now expected rollback of emission and mileage standards that favor electric vehicles. Smithfield Foods' CEO says he hopes that everything the company has done to make working in its plants more attractive ever since COVID tore through the industry during the pandemic will help it weather the impact of President Donald Trump's promised mass deportations. Smithfield went public Tuesday, more than a decade after the world's largest pork producer was bought by China's WH Group. CEO Shane Smith says he believes the company is positioned to grow in the next few years. He said Smithfield has streamlined its cost and is focused on more profitable packaged meats business through its brands like Ekridge, Armour, and Nathan's Famous.
Todd Gleason: 10:43The company's shares went on sale for $20 and dipped less than a dollar in trading Tuesday before finishing close to the offering price, generating some $522,000,000 for the Smithfield, Virginia based company. And that's a look at today's agricultural news. Ed Aslett now joins us from University of Minnesota Extension. Hi, Ed. Thank you.
Todd Gleason: 11:17What an interesting day so far. Over the weekend, the president, enforced or was expected and began to enforce a series of tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico in the last couple of hours. By the time this airs, Mexico has come to an agreement with the president that they'll put 10000 National Guard soldiers on the border, to try to weed out immigrants and fentanyl, and that will cause a one month pause of the 25% tariff that Trump is expected to put onto them. And then the secondary thing was just so we have everything in place that this this pause, while one month, was really scheduled, although April 1 is the next deadline when Trump wants to take up trade initiatives as opposed to fentanyl and immigration. The corn market, of course, was happy, though corn had not been impacted, relatively speaking, unless you think about it through pork and some other things, on on the Mexico side, it jumped up in the marketplace. What'd you think of all of this over the weekend?
Ed Usset: 12:34Well, it's, it's hard to keep up with it, and that it's moving very quickly. I note, and you mentioned this pause as we speak, Todd. I mean, this this was announced less than 15 ago. And, at the corn market, the the markets were off a little bit this morning, not too much. And now I'm looking at, March 0 soybean futures up 15¢.
Ed Usset: 13:02I'm looking at corn up, 78¢, and the the wheat markets are up about 10 to 11¢. So they like that news. They like it good. I don't know. This is a very uncertain environment.
Ed Usset: 13:20Uncertain environments are always upsetting. I will say this, Todd. I've been mentioning for months in the world of corn in in all the commodities, I'm looking for a rally to sell. I mean, if we wanna think about today and what we need to be doing, I've been looking for a rally to sell. And and that doesn't mean the first dime up, I was I was ready to go.
Ed Usset: 13:46I'm looking for a substantial rally to sell. Corn this morning, right now as we speak, roughly close to $4.90 a bushel. That's 85 to 90¢ over its life of contract lows set way back in I mean, March 0 corn got as low as $4.00 3, and here we are bumping up against $4.90. And, my word to people, and I've been traveling a bit and talking to producers, my word is, this is the rally I was thinking about. And, we need to get something done.
Ed Usset: 14:21I don't know if it's the high. I'm not I'm not smart enough to, comment on anything like that. All I know is I've been looking for a rally to sell, and I think this is it.
Todd Gleason: 14:32How much would you sell?
Ed Usset: 14:35Depends on how much you got, but, there are a lot of producers out there with last year's corn in the bin. Unfortunately, dad, there are producers out there with the 2023 crop in the bin. But let's just focus on '24. And, you know, I would I would be working to move a chunk of it, 2030, '40 of it. If it's in the bin, unpriced, here's an opportunity to get it done.
Ed Usset: 15:03And then, as always, whenever you make a sale, hope like heck you're wrong. Hope like heck that that sale was you know, they're they're gonna grumble, Todd, and send you nasty notes because that guy from the University of Minnesota thought it was time to sell. People are selling, by the way, and the proof to me is in the basis, which in, I don't track the Illinois basis levels in Illinois. But here in Minnesota, the corn basis, the nearby basis is off a good 20¢ in the last, four, five weeks. And the soybean basis is off also off 20 to 30¢ a bushel.
Ed Usset: 15:47And that that simply reflects the fact that buyers are buying corn and soybeans. It's starting to move. It's a new tax year, and that grain is starting to move.
Todd Gleason: 15:57So you're a willing seller of old crop. What about new crop?
Ed Usset: 16:01New crop, I can't, can't quite wrap my mind around that. It is I'm watching it, and I'm worried about it. I'm always I'm always worried, dad, but I am looking at Dec. 0 corn, December '25 corn at $4.65. While off its lows, 35¢ or more off its lows from but, boy, that's not a very impressive number.
Ed Usset: 16:33I'm I'm just gonna be patient on that, cross my fingers and cross my toes that sometime out this spring, maybe April 0, May 0, maybe into early summer and June 0, we see a better opportunity.
Todd Gleason: 16:48What are you worried about going forward other than the Oval Office? I think everybody has to take that as a worry with with the tariff, tariffs that are put in place. However, fundamentally, is it the acreage report at the March,? Is it something else that you've been watching?
Ed Usset: 17:03I think the acreage report will be very, interesting. And I said here here's my own sense, that I I think people are are already talking about a modest shift away from soybeans into corn. And my only thought on that is, I don't think it's gonna be as modest as we think. I think that shift will be bigger. I'm not willing to put numbers on it, but, you know, I've seen people talk about two or 3000000 acres, shifting from soybeans to corn, and it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a bigger number than that.
Todd Gleason: 17:41Hey. Thank you much. I appreciate it.
Ed Usset: 17:43Hey. Thank you, Todd. Take care.
Todd Gleason: 17:45You too. That's Ed Asad. He is an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota with extension there. Joining us on this Monday edition of the closing market report. Our theme music is written, performed, produced by Logan County, Illinois Farmer Tim Gleason.
Todd Gleason: 17:59And don't forget that coming up at the March, on the fourth day on a Tuesday, we'll be hosting our thirty fifth annual all day I got look at the beef house in Covington, Indiana. If you've not been before, this is a great meeting. If you've been before, you know that's the case. We kick it off with The Beef House Roll and coffee in the morning. You don't get those anywhere else except there really because they're not open at that time of day.
Todd Gleason: 18:25It's a fantastic cinnamon roll, of course, a beef house lunch. And throughout the day, we'll have agricultural economists from the farm doc team, Neil Dahlstrom, will be there. He's the author of Tractor Wars. That documentary will be airing on PBS channel twelve in the month of March 0. We'll also hear from Sue Martin that day.
Todd Gleason: 18:44She's flying in for us along with our regular analyst. You'll want to be there. Make sure you register now at willag.0rg. Let's turn our attention now on this Monday to the weather forecast. Mark Russo is here from Everstream Analytics.
Todd Gleason: 19:12Hi, Mark. Thanks for being with us. Can you begin in South America for me? We've been watching with concern on and off about the Argentine crop. Is that still something we need to be worried about?
Mark Russo: 19:28Yes, Todd. As we've seen here lately, well, throughout much of Jan. 0, we saw hot temperatures at times, below normal rainfall pattern and that has resulted in significant decreases in soil moisture and significant decreases in crop conditions for both corn and soybeans. And now Argentina corn and soybeans are reported to be to to have conditions here less than the five year average. We expect these conditions to basically stay in place with no major improvement over the next several weeks.
Mark Russo: 20:03The pattern coming up, it does feature some rain activity, but for the belt as a whole, it is a below normal rainfall pattern. Breaking things down a bit, actually the southern acreage is a bit more favored compared to the northern acreage. So getting a little bit of, stabilization south but then the northern crop belt will likely continue to trend downhill. And the other item of known Argentina is that there's still periodic heat such as what we're seeing right now. And over the next fifteen days, there will again be kind of multiple stretches of heat, which especially for pollinating corn, will, certainly be negative.
Todd Gleason: 20:42Are those conditions across parts of Paraguay, Uruguay and Southern Brazil as well?
Mark Russo: 20:48They have turned a drier of late, but that does look to change here coming up. And so at this time, we don't have any worries for Brazil, especially some of the recently dry acreage in and around Rio Grande do Sul. Now for another few more days, they'll be on the dry side, but it does look like rains will return this upcoming weekend and next week, providing dryness relief there and even up into Paraguay as well.
Todd Gleason: 21:11And in Manta Grosso, the Center West part of Brazil, how do you see things unfolding?
Mark Russo: 21:16Yeah. We still see active weather or an active pattern with some frequent heavier rain from now through Friday and Saturday. After that, it does look like the pattern shifts less active, drier, and that's all happening in parallel to Southern Brazil turning more active. So it's all interrelated and that drier weather is needed to at least help kind of, you know, return not return, but help to again, allow for at least a little more favorable soybean harvest and safrinha, planting conditions.
Todd Gleason: 21:49Here in The United States, it's a beautiful 61 degrees on February in Central Illinois. That's a pretty high temperature. Do things cool off again fairly quickly?
Mark Russo: 22:00They do. In fact, it's already taking place here across, Northern Illinois where I'm I'm based. We've seen temperatures cool down. And while still this week will be a bit more warmer biased, especially Central And Southern Midwest, that looks to change in a big way next week as cooler weather will return. There's no sign of any major extreme cold coming in, but we do need to keep an eye on some extreme cold that will be situated across Western Canada.
Mark Russo: 22:28Looks like most of it stays up in Western Canada, but certainly something to keep an eye on for later this month.
Todd Gleason: 22:34Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Mark Russo: 22:35You're welcome, Todd.
Todd Gleason: 22:36Mark Russo is at Aberstream Analytics. Joined us on this Monday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Find us online. Listen to us on demand anytime you'd like.
Todd Gleason: 22:49You can do that at willag.org, where today you'll find the way to register for the all day ag outlook. Don't wait. Do it right now. The cost is just $40, and that includes your beef house roll and coffee in the morning and the beef house lunch on Tuesday, March,. I'm Illinois extensions, Todd Gleeson.