Todd Gleason: 00:00

From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market report. It is the March 2025. I'm extension's Todd Gleeson. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Greg Johnson from Total Grain Marketing, the Champaign County elevator. We'll hear from Drew Lerner at World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City.

Todd Gleason: 00:19

And I'll review some of the trade and tariff policies that President Trump outlined in last night's speech to the joint session of Congress, all on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media.

Greg Johnson: 00:35

Todd Gleason services are made available to WIL by University of Illinois extension.

Todd Gleason: 00:40

Oh, Macorn for the day settled the nearby contract at $4.55 and 3 quarters, up four and a quarter. 07/04/1963 and a quarter, four higher in December. New crop unchanged. $4.46 and 3 quarters of a cent. The settlement price made beans $10.11 and 3 quarters, 12 and three quarters higher.

Todd Gleason: 00:57

July 1025, up 11 and a quarter. November, '10 dollars '9 and a half cents, up 6¢. Bean meal futures, $6.30 higher. The bean oil for the day, 15¢ higher. Wheat futures, up 11 and a half in the nearby May, July, the harvest month, ten and three quarters higher.

Todd Gleason: 01:13

Settlement price there at $5.62. The hard red July at $5.71 and a quarter, up 8¢ on the afternoon. Live cattle futures up a dollar 90 for the day. Feeder cattle, $3.57 and a half cents higher, and lean hogs, up $2.35. Greg Johnson from TGM, that's totalgrainmarketing.com, now joins us on this Wednesday as usual.

Todd Gleason: 01:36

Thank you, by the way, for being at the All Day Egg Outlook at the Beef House yesterday. Nice crowd. Really good stuff happening all day long. I appreciate the work that you and Ellen Dearden, did in the morning along with all the rest of our panelists. Danny Poff was there in the morning too with you.

Todd Gleason: 01:57

A fantastic day, and and I know the crowd was so appreciative of what you had to say. Not a lot to work with, actually, with soybeans, but you did get to to to get a few things across, I think, for producers to consider as we go forward. Did anything change from last night as you listened to the president?

Greg Johnson: 02:17

You know, still a lot of uncertainty. You know, the the president says we may have to endure a short period of pain, you know, as we transition. So nothing real friendly came out of that, but, historically, Trump knows that the Midwest is, some of his biggest support. So you would like to think that, his policies will will take that into account when it all is said and done.

Todd Gleason: 02:44

I thought as I was watching that last night and he started to talk about, other types of barriers rather than tariffs that some, countries use. And usually that's, you know, phytosanitary or something along those lines. Often has to do with, foreign material, and I thought, man, if he only knew FM was the name we use for all that stuff,

Greg Johnson: 03:10

that would be that would

Todd Gleason: 03:12

that might have been made for a more interesting list. And, but it did concern me because he mentioned that and then he turned around and we'll hear this in the news segment in just a second. He mentioned that and turned around and and he talked about it again when he was talking about the imposition of tariffs by The United States, and he specifically mentioned incoming agricultural products and the the FM or phytosanitary issues that some of them might have, and that one concerned me as as to, the president possibly considering those as those also as an option, to manage the trade war that we're entering now. Does does that make a difference to you?

Greg Johnson: 03:56

Well, it it probably does in the big picture, but being a corn and bean buyer and and talking to mainly corn and soybean producers, we do not import a lot of corn and soybeans. So even if we use non tariff, barriers like phytosanitary, that's not we we we don't import a lot of corn and beans to begin with, so I'm not sure that, you know, that that's gonna really help us out at, you know, very much at all as corn and soybean producers. Now maybe other commodities, you know, would have a different view on that, but I'm not sure that that's real friendly corn or soybeans.

Todd Gleason: 04:28

Well, I wonder about it mostly because Chinese have already used that. With the Brazilians, in this marketing year, I suppose they could reject cargos from The United States.

Greg Johnson: 04:39

Sure. Exactly. I mean and the Chinese could devalue their currency. They they could, you know, they they they can manipulate the currency. They can do some other nontariff structure type things to, you know, to cut down on imports and and to increase exports.

Greg Johnson: 04:56

So, yeah, it's very tariffs aren't the only barriers. There there are other options, but, I I still would like to continue to think that, this is all part of a negotiating tactic and that, hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and that, we can get something worked out with Canada and Mexico, if not China, sooner rather than later.

Todd Gleason: 05:16

What are your expectations, for farmers at this point? What should they have taken away from last night? What should they be doing as it's related to thinking about old and new crop sales?

Greg Johnson: 05:29

Well, there's a little bit more of a story in corn, than there is in soybeans. So number one, I would say since we've dropped, in the corn market, we lost 62¢ of the dollar 3 that we gained. I would say, you know, the the the car the horse is out of the barn, so there's really not a lot to do with corn at this point. You know, when we were up higher, yes, we should've been making some sales, but and and some people did. But now that we're 62¢ lower, I think we just have to be patient because, like I said, there is a story.

Greg Johnson: 05:59

We have demand not only out of Mexico, but other countries are buying US corn. So there there is demand. The ending stocks number has continued to come down from 2.2 down to 1.5, and, maybe that's as tight as it gets, but, that's certainly better than something with a two in front of it. And then we've got South America's double crop corn planted about two to three weeks later than normal. They could still have a good crop.

Greg Johnson: 06:24

It's too early to say, but it does raise the risk that they will be pollinating and filling during some of their hotter and drier parts of the year. So there's still a long ways to go. And, even if we do plant more acres of corn here, the weather's gonna have the final say on, how many acres we plant and what kind of yield we get attached to those acres. It's already too wet in the Southeast, and people are a little talking a little prematurely, I think, but talking about prevented plant acres or switching acres down there. And then, of course, we all know how dry it's been from here on West and, nothing that a couple of good entrain wouldn't take care of.

Greg Johnson: 07:00

But, nevertheless, as of today, we're on the dry side. So, there's some concern. There'll be some risk premium put in the market, you know, relative to the weather. So I think corn has a little bit more of a story to sell, and, I think farmers should be patient on corn. Soybeans, you know, we've we gained 85¢ from the August lows, and we've given back 79¢ of that 85¢ rally.

Greg Johnson: 07:26

So we're right back where we started. Kind of in the lower half of the range, just barely you know, if you use $10 for a midpoint, we're kinda right at that today. So it's hard to get real excited about selling beans, but if we have a little bit of a rally as a result of maybe this trade, talks getting worked out a little bit better, I would be more willing to sell beans on a small rally than I would corn on a small rally at these prices.

Todd Gleason: 07:53

Do you expect USDA in any significant way to update the supply and demand tables in next week's WASDE report?

Greg Johnson: 08:01

The demand for corn, both ethanol and exports, are ahead of pace, so I wouldn't be surprised if we, you know, increase exports and increase ethanol a little bit. But, the flip side is feed usage doesn't seem to be very good, especially with the bird flu and, cattle cattle, numbers, being, at all time lows, not seventy year lows anyway. So I guess the one might offset the other and, you know, the 1,500,000,000.0 is probably, you know, I think that's probably net effect. They may change some numbers around, but I think that the bottom line is the ending stocks number stays about the same. And on soybeans, I don't think they will try to incorporate any potential trade war, if it if it's fatalities in the in the in the March report, I think they'll wait a while until they see whether that really plays out or not.

Greg Johnson: 08:52

So I guess I'm not looking for much change, but, if we we never look for much change, and then we get something. That's why we have big price moves, one way or the other on days of the report. So I guess we'll

Todd Gleason: 09:04

have to wait and see. Now I was wondering mostly because Mexico is the number one importer of corn, and we already have a tariff in place. Mexico could make moves in the future, I suppose. USDA will consider that as a policy that's there, I suppose, and that could change. Looking forward, though, the 94,000,000 acres that USDA came out for the Ag AG forum for corn, do you think that'll change at the end of the month?

Todd Gleason: 09:31

Farmers would have been surveyed, around March 1.

Greg Johnson: 09:35

Right. I I I think that's the right number. I think that's what farmers really do intend to plant. Now whether the the the weather will have the final say as to whether we actually get that many acres planted or not, I I guess, you know, I was using 94 and a half. And, with the weather the way it is, I you know, the actual number may be more like 94.

Greg Johnson: 09:54

But, 94, 90 four and a half, that's that's enough acres. So it really kind of all boils down to the weather. And I think now with the Ag Outlook forum number out, I think the traders are kinda conditioned to expect a 94,000,000 number. So if we get 94,000,000 from the March 31 acreage report, I think that's pretty well baked in. And, like I say, it'll be tariffs and weather that will move this market next if if the number comes out at 94,000,000.

Todd Gleason: 10:19

Thank you much. We'll talk with you again next week.

Greg Johnson: 10:22

Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: 10:23

That's Greg Johnson. He is with TGM. That's totalgrainmarketing.com. Let's talk a little bit about the president's speech last night. As you've already heard, he alluded to tariffs, of course, more than once.

Todd Gleason: 10:40

We'll pick up with a portion of the speech where he concentrated on his use of tariffs as it's related to trade and fairness.

President Donald Trump: 10:48

If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases, a rather large one. Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada. Have you heard of them? And countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them.

President Donald Trump: 11:21

It's very unfair.

Todd Gleason: 11:22

To that end, the president told the joint session of congress that new tariffs would be imposed in the month of April.

President Donald Trump: 11:30

This system is not fair to The United States and never was. And so on April 2, I wanted to make it April 1, but I didn't wanna be accused of April Fools' Day. That's what that's not just one day which cost us a lot of money, but we're going to do it in April. I'm a very superstitious person. April 2, reciprocal tariffs kick in.

President Donald Trump: 11:57

And whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. That's reciprocal back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them. If they do non monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. There's a lot of that too.

President Donald Trump: 12:24

They don't even allow us in their market.

Todd Gleason: 12:26

In the president's view, The United States, as it's related to trade, has been, quote, ripped off, unquote, for several decades. Likely, my guess is he's thinking back to the early nineteen nineties and the gap negotiations or the general agreement on tariffs and trade and the open trade policies that were adopted across the planet.

President Donald Trump: 12:48

Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer. I love the farmer. Yes. Who will now be selling into our home market, The USA, because nobody is going to be able to compete with you Because those goods that come in from other comp countries and companies, they're really, really in a bad position in so many different ways. They're unexpected.

President Donald Trump: 13:19

They may be very dirty and disgusting, and they come in and they pour in, and they hurt our American farmers. The tariffs will go on agricultural product coming into America, and our our farmers starting on April 2. It may be a little bit of an adjustment period. We had that before when I made the deal with China. Fifty Billion Dollars of purchases, and I said, just bear with me.

President Donald Trump: 13:42

And they did. They did. Probably have to bear with me again, and this will be even better. That was great. The problem with it was that Biden didn't enforce it.

President Donald Trump: 13:52

He didn't enforce it. $50,000,000,000 of purchases, and we were doing great, but Biden did not enforce it. And it hurt our farmers, but our farmers are gonna have a field day right now. So to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you too.

Todd Gleason: 14:09

And with that, the president seems to have changed decades long agricultural trade policy, which has said level the playing field and US Agriculture will compete on the world stage. The president now expects US Farmers to sell into the domestic marketplace. Soybeans are an interesting problem because about 41% of this past year's crop is expected to go into the export market. Drew Lerner now joins us to take a look at the weather forecast for the global growing regions across the planet. We have a lot of ground to cover today, Drew.

Todd Gleason: 14:55

Can you put into context the safrinha or second crop planting rate and the weather for you?

Drew Lerner: 15:02

Absolutely. You know, in the last couple of weeks, we've seen, these farmers, really hustle to try to get their crops, their soybean crop harvested and and they get that safrinha corn in the ground. Well the latest statistics from CONAB suggests that as of Sunday, the, safrinha corn, second season crop, had been planted on about 89% of its whole acreage. So it has about 11% this left, and, it they've made huge strides, like I said. It's still been planted late though and we still run the risk of seeing the moisture profile diminish before the crop has completed the reproductive and filling processes, which will be in late April at the earliest for this late crop and more likely in May.

Drew Lerner: 15:52

And so with that in mind, I still think there is reason to be concerned about their late planted crop. Any crop that was planted in the last ten days to two weeks, I think, is going to be at risk of some lower yield. We do expect the seasonal rains to end in mid April, and, we could see some scattered showers in May. It's just too early to be able to determine how great those showers may be and also how warm it is. Because if it's hot, scattered showers will do nothing, to counter the evaporation, and, it will just, you know, deplete the moisture profile anyway, just a little slower maybe than it might otherwise.

Drew Lerner: 16:34

So we are concerned that we'll go through these next few weeks in good shape and the crop will develop well, but we are worried about what happens after the rains end, which will be, again, mid to late April and and then from that point onwards. So I think there's potential for a little bit of trouble, but the majority of the crop is probably gonna make it through without a lot of loss.

Todd Gleason: 16:56

What are you watching in Argentina today?

Drew Lerner: 16:58

You know, Argentina, when we talked last week, we talked about some significant rain that had been developing and falling up to that point. And that central parts of Argentina were getting really good rains and the crop was really in much better shape there. But we talked about it being too dry to the South and too dry to the north. Well since then it's rained in most areas except the Far North and the ground is now saturated in the topsoil and almost all of their major grain and oilseed production region. And so we have finally come full circle now, we're back into a much better scenario and the late season crops are finishing up reproduction and filling and it's a really good environment.

Drew Lerner: 17:42

It will rain into Saturday for the Southwest Of Argentina but the North is going to stay dry. Now that northern area, it's primarily cotton country and maybe some minor corn and sorghum and soybeans but it's not very important, when it comes to the bottom line. So we think that most of the country has come around, and, it looks like more rain will come on for late March. And so the bottom line should be really good for most of Argentina's late crop.

Todd Gleason: 18:10

Here in The United States, yesterday, we were expecting more rainfall, I think, than we had gotten in Champaign County, Illinois. We had, Sue Martin in for our all day outlook. She's from Central Iowa, flew in and out without really any, problems. However, sent me a photo from her backyard this morning. She was snowed in and had to work from home.

Todd Gleason: 18:36

Has substantial drifts there. Really, a winter blizzard, cold and a lot of snow.

Drew Lerner: 18:43

Very. Very.

Todd Gleason: 18:44

What can yeah. Tell me about all the things that have been happening.

Drew Lerner: 18:47

Yeah. That was a powerful storm. I it developed very quickly. I'm not sure if it qualified completely for a bomb cyclone. I forgot to go look at that data, but this low pressure center started in Kansas and just grew and grew and grew overnight.

Drew Lerner: 19:03

And, it did produce blizzard conditions in many areas in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, parts of Minnesota, and now in Wisconsin. Wind speeds, in Western Kansas, not so much the blizzard part of the storm, but Garden City, Kansas had a wind gust yesterday afternoon 84 miles per hour. And we saw gusts occurring in most of Eastern Nebraska and Eastern Kansas through Iowa into Southern Minnesota, ranging from about 45 to around 67 miles per hour. And that started with rain, and then it got colder overnight, and everybody started seeing snow. And, yeah, blizzard conditions occurred.

Drew Lerner: 19:46

There's been some impressive snows. I think up around Minneapolis, they end up with more than 10 inches. At two to six or seven inches occurring across a lot of these other areas. So, yeah, pretty impressive. And off to the east course, we had severe thunderstorms for a little while and some heavy rain.

Drew Lerner: 20:01

It smells like spring. Right? This is all the kind of thing you'd see in spring, and I think that's what's happening. The atmosphere is responding to another shot of cold air coming down from the north while we warmed up this past weekend. So I think this is a great sample of what we should expect this spring.

Drew Lerner: 20:20

I think we're gonna have a lot of severe weather, a lot of powerful storms occurring like this. And so the Eastern Midwest may be a bit too wet for a little while, and the West may get a little bit wetter, which can be helpful since they still have moisture deficits hanging around.

Todd Gleason: 20:36

Were you looking too at springtime weather in Europe and the Black Sea area?

Drew Lerner: 20:41

Yes. You know, just this past week, we, took a deep dive into the situation over there. There's been a lot of chatter about, what, about Russia's Southern region and Eastern Ukraine because they were so dry when they planted last autumn. And there's been a lot of discussion about the fact that it's still dry there. Well, if you look at their topsoil moisture, it's actually better than it was last autumn, and there's room for crop to improve there if they can get timely rain this spring.

Drew Lerner: 21:09

So we we took on this study and what we found was that the, the deep soil moisture down at the root level and and really down into almost the groundwater level, what we found was that there are tremendous deficits still common in most of Eastern Europe, really from Poland down into the, the Lower Danube River Basin and across Ukraine into Russia's southern region. And now we don't see this dryness when you look at the topsoil. This is something that's deep in the ground, but if we for some reason don't manage to get timely rain to occur this spring and we heat up, that dryness will come to the surface very quickly because there's not that much moisture in the topsoil. So this is a a potential hotbed that we need to watch. The, forecast that we have, come up with here for the next several weeks is the Northwest flow is probably gonna dominate this part of the world.

Drew Lerner: 22:07

So that will be a a below normal precipitation bias and temperatures will be normalish to below normal at times. So that will help to conserve that moisture, but it's not going to bring in a lot of new moisture and so these areas may get into the warmer days of late spring and, start heating up without a lot of moisture to fall back on. So the potential there is, you know, we could run into a little problem. Now I will tell you this, our study for the spring did show an improvement in rain potential in May, maybe late April too. So it may turn out to be one of those situations where everybody's really worried about this, and at the last minute, we start getting rain.

Drew Lerner: 22:46

So don't be quick to to make a decision on that, but keep a close eye on it.

Todd Gleason: 22:51

I'll try not to. Hey. Thank you, Drew.

Greg Johnson: 22:53

I appreciate

Drew Lerner: 22:54

it. Alright. Have a great day and good week.

Todd Gleason: 22:56

You too. That's Drew Lerner. He is with World Weather Incorporated in Kansas City. Joined us on this Wednesday edition of the closing market report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media.

Todd Gleason: 23:06

I'm extension's Todd Glisson.