Your Pro Farmer newsletter (June 10, 2023) is now available

USDA updated its corn and soybean balance sheets to reflect old-crop usage trends. But as expected, there were no changes to the yield projections despite drought continuing to expand. Dryness/drought now covers much of the Corn Belt, with USDA estimating 45% of corn production areas and 39% of soybeans now face drought stress. While El Niño is established and expected to strengthen, that doesn’t mean weather will improve. Given declining soil moisture and below-average corn and soybean conditions, timely rains will be needed the remainder of the growing season. There were a couple new twists in the war between Ukraine and Russia. A dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed, which could result in additional Ukrainian crop losses. And an explosion on a pipeline that used to transport ammonia from Russia via Ukraine was damaged, potentially putting the Black Sea grain deal in jeopardy. With the debt limit issue resolved, attention in Washington will turn to the new farm bill. Crop insurance and the commodity title, along with SNAP (formerly food stamps) will be key battle grounds during the farm bill debates. We cover all of these items and much more in this week’s newsletter, which you can download here.