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Farm-state Senators want answers from Trump… Ag-state senators have asked to meet with President Trump on China’s trade retaliation against U.S. soybeans—a ‘hardball’ play that could put some U.S. producers out of business. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley says he and other GOP senators held a private meeting last week on China’s effective embargo of U.S. soybeans.
The Senator reports, “We told each other what we thought was a critical situation, similar to the 1980s with dropping land prices, increased interest rates, and low farm prices.” But unlike the eighties, Grassley recounted, something had to be done before 20-thousand farmers went out of business and others committed suicide.
“The results of that meeting were for us to request a meeting with the President of the United States at the White House. I hope it can happen next week, and tell the President to his face about the plight,” especially after soybeans didn’t come up in talks with China in Spain and here. Trump said in August that he hoped China would quadruple its soybean orders in talks with the U.S.
NCGA musters inputs task force… Citing near-record production costs in a low-price environment, the National Corn Growers Association launched a task force to identify solutions to bring costs more in line with today’s commodity prices. Corn growers are in their third consecutive year of net negative returns, with 2026 projected to be the fourth.
Recent analysis from NCGA economists shows that input prices remain at near-record highs despite the precipitous drop in per bushel corn prices in the last three years. Production costs have dropped three percent since 2022, while corn prices dropped over 50 percent.
Ripples from California to the hoghouse… Every hog farmer in the U.S., whether large or small, stands to lose when faced with a patchwork of differing and ever-changing state sow housing laws spurred by California’s Prop 12. The issue goes beyond animal welfare to the root of the Constitution’s interstate commerce regulations and how bending them can break farmers.
National Pork Producers Council Vice President Pat Hord testified before the House Agriculture Committee in July and stressed the need for patchwork prevention, even for those like him who have chosen to retrofit their barns to be Prop 12 compliant. Hord said, “Whatever steps we take today for California’s regulations could have to be changed when a new state decides they want a different housing standard.”
NPPC recently submitted comments on the adverse effects of extraterritoriality, which is the legal concept that a state’s laws can apply to people or actions outside its borders.
A new climate analysis reveals US flooding events are significantly increasing despite no apparent change in annual precipitation amount. The report from AccuWeather shows rainfall amounts over the past 60 years have not significantly increased, but the severity of rain events has, and that makes a big difference.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson explains, “The days with one inch or more rainfall increased about 9% since 1965, which is not a lot. However, the days with four-inch rainfall events have increased by 70% since 1965, so you can see the difference there. So it’s really the big rainfall amount, especially two inches or more, where we’re really seeing the biggest uptick.”
Anderson says this particularly impacts agriculture in the months leading up to planting season. He remarked, “The biggest increase we’re expecting in the future for extreme rainfall is probably going to be in the spring and winter, especially the spring, with the crop planting, more extreme rainfall means more delays.”
ISU finds cover crops, no-till a tough sell… A new study from Iowa State University sheds surprising light on the evolving landscape of agricultural conservation in the state. It found that many farmers who adopted two key conservation practices, including cover crops and no-till, didn’t continue using those practices over time. The research explored farmers’ self-reports of whether they adopted, continued, or abandoned the conservation practices between 2015 and 2019.
Most conservation adoption research operates under the assumption that once a practice has begun, it will remain in use. The farmer survey shows that almost 20 percent of farmers who used cover crops in one year had stopped using them by the following year.
For cover crops, 192 farmers moved to an adopter status during the study period.
However, 142 shifted out of the adoption category, leaving a net gain of 50 people. That’s an overall adoption increase of 1.9 percent. The no-till adoption gain was only 26 individuals.
Notable closes…
China has increased bookings of Argentine soybeans from yesterday. Originally 10 cargoes were reported. The total has since doubled to a total of 20 cargoes, or roughly 1.3 MMT of soybeans.
- November beans were 3 cents lower at $10.09
- January beans softened 3 ¼ cents to 10.28 ½
- March beans closed at $10.44 ¾, down 3 cents today
Price pressure on boxed beef and the cash cattle market weighed on cattle futures today. Support for October fed cattle broke through and closed below support at the 20-day moving average of $234.95.
- October live cattle were $1.55 lower at $234.05
- December live cattle fell $1.92 ½ to $236.82 ½
- October feeders dropped $2.50 to close at $359.62 ½