Headlines:                                                                  

  • Farm Sector Shrugs off Trump Proposals for Farm Bill Cuts
    One of the truisms of Washington, repeated frequently by lawmakers, is that Congress – not the President – writes the farm bill. With that in mind, the largest U.S. farm group and the crop insurance industry say President Trump’s proposals to slash crop insurance funding and to deny farm payments to the wealthiest producers will have no lasting impact. Congress ignored similar proposals for big USDA cuts last year, said Dale Moore, public policy director for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
  • NAFTA Clock Is Ticking, Vetter Says – She thinks the talks are far from over
    Meal is still the pack leader with prices of the feed ingredient boosted by worries over production of soybeans in Argentina. In fact, the midday run of There’s too much left to do before the deadline for renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a former U.S. trade representative told Agriculture.com. The most recent NAFTA talks were held in Montreal last month. The negotiations are scheduled to be completed by the end of March. On Monday, Darci Vetter, formerly the chief agricultural negotiator for the U.S. trade representative in the Obama administration and diplomat in residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, says the talks have a long way to go.

 

Summary:

The Chinese New Year will start tomorrow and Chinese markets will be closed through Monday. We anticipate a bit of a lull in volume over the next couple of trading days. Traders continue to be concerned about dry weather in Argentina which in turns continues to give Soybean futures legs. Beans were up just past 5 cents today. Argentine weather continues to be dry through the week as expected, rain showers are possible in western Argentina for the weekend, but volumes are limited and any help for the soil moisture profile will be small. Corn settled 1 tick below yesterday’s close and was once again unable to keep its intraday gains after following Beans higher for a portion of the day. Brazil’s first crop corn harvest is at 17% complete, slightly ahead of last year’s pace at 15%. US exporters sold 123,000 metric tons of corn to unknown for the 2017-2018 marketing year. Wheat was down again this time giving up about 4.50 to 6 cents on the day. There are little to no changes forecasted in US southern plains weather in the next 10 days.