First Thing Today Audio | August 27, 2021
Corn futures are 3 to 4 cents lower to start the day, with soybeans down 7 to 9 cents. Winter and spring wheat futures are mixed. The greenback is just below unchanged. Crude oil futures are sharply higher as the Delta braces for Hurricane Ida.
Over the past 18 hours, much of the Midwest received rain, with the heaviest showers centered over Minnesota and Iowa. More rain is expected today and flash flood watches are in effect for much of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will signal the direction of U.S. monetary policy at a virtual speech at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium at 9:00 a.m. CT today. The central bank continues to debate how and when to begin dialing back its stimulus.
China had around 490,000 square miles of arable land at the close of 2019, a 6% decline from a decade before, according to the country’s survey of land use that’s conducted once every decade. But land dedicated to agriculture has fallen by roughly 29,000 square miles since 2009, with some arable land converted to forest and industrial and urban use.
Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee want the Biden administration to provide a 60-day extension to allow for more public comments and meetings on the rewrite defining the waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulations.
The Supreme Court ruled for a group of Alabama landlords on Thursday and blocked President Joe Biden from extending for two more months a nationwide pandemic-related ban on evictions. After Congress failed to renew a federal evictions moratorium that expired on July 31, Democratic activists pressed Biden to reverse course.
In recent months, the U.S has overtaken Australia as the top exporter of frozen beef to China. While tensions between Australia and China have prompted the country to limit its imports of many commodities from Canberra, the Phase 1 trade deal gives China incentive to bring in more U.S. beef.
USDA on Thursday announced its intent to designate Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as a “protection zone,” a World Organization for Animal Health designation that allows the U.S. to maintain its current animal health status should there be a detection of African swine fever or other foreign animal disease on the island territories.
After setting back for just two days, Choice beef firmed 38 cents on Thursday and Select rose $3.90. This adds to ideas that while a top may be in place, a pullback will likely be limited by strong demand for beef and more current marketings vs. earlier this year.
Hog and futures prices typically drop seasonally in the weeks ahead, but we believe futures’ have too big of a seasonal drop factored into prices. That could ring especially true if high beef prices lift demand for certain cuts of pork in the months ahead.
