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The war between Russia and Ukraine again grabbed the market’s attention this week, arguably overshadowing Wednesday’s August USDA reports as the two countries traded attacks on each other’s ports and grain infrastructure.
- “Ukrainian attacks on Russian grain facilities and Russian strikes against Ukrainian ports have highlighted the vulnerability of one of the world’s most important agricultural export corridors,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. “With both countries major wheat suppliers, repeated disruption could tighten physical availability even if global inventories on paper remain adequate.”
Bloomberg reported that major crop buyers across Asia are turning to other suppliers in response to the intensifying attacks. Ukraine’s grain exports in the first part of August slumped 75% from a year earlier, and Russian shipments this month are expected to be less than half the five-year average, the report noted.
Those buyers include Indonesia, the world’s second-biggest wheat importer, which picked up cargoes from Australia for September and October, the report said. Other Southeast Asian countries have also booked Australian wheat for around the same time, while buyers in Bangladesh reportedly sought offers from Romania. Inquiries have been made as far as North America, the report added.
USDA in Wednesday’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates lowered world trade in wheat by 300,000 tons to 212.7 million on reductions for Russia and Ukraine, with a boost to exports from Canada and Kazakhstan a partial offset.
The Black Sea turmoil made for a volatile but positive week for wheat futures, with September soft red winter posting a weekly gain of 35 cents after a 22-cen rise on Friday. September hard red winter wheat jumped 3 ¾ cents Friday for a weekly gain of 40 ¼ cents. Harvest pressure kept a lid on spring wheat, with September up 9 cents Friday to trim its weekly loss to 1 ¼ cents.
Wheat was boosted ahead of the weekend after Russia on Friday dismissed the notion of a Black Sea ceasefire with Ukraine.
Weekly market recap: Wheat futures helped set a positive tone, while a friendly USDA report lifted corn while China maintained buying interest in U.S. soybeans. The Pro Farmer Crop Tour will be front and center next week for ground-truth clues to how well the corn and soybean crops are actually doing (see item below).
- December corn rose 11 ¼ cents to $4.83 ¼, the highest close in three weeks, for a weekly gain of 21 ¼ cents.
- November soybeans ended 10 ¼ cents higher at $11.92 ½, for a weekly advance of 16 ¼ cents.
- December cotton gained 130 points to 84.80 cents, a three-month high close.
- October live cattle futures fell $1.175 to end at $218.875 after hitting an eight-month low, losing $6.40 on the week. An announcement by Tyson Foods that it was closing an Illinois beef plant weighed on the market. September feeders shed $2.65 to $334.55, having also hit an eight-month low, for a weekly drop of $10.675.
- October lean hog futures fell 37.5 cents to $81.75 after dropping to a six-week low, losing 47.5 cents on the week.
Crop Tour ready to launch: The Pro Farmer Crop Tour kicks off on Monday, with scouts set to pull thousands of corn and soybean samples across seven key growing states, offering the first objective, boots-in-the-field look at the crops. Those boots are bound to get muddy after waves of intense storms and high winds across a large swath of the Corn Belt. What scouts see in the worst-hit areas will be of interest. The tour comes after USDA on Wednesday offered its first survey-based assessment of the U.S.crops as of Aug. 1.
“Conditions have changed so much since August 1 in the Eastern Belt and in the Western Belt,” said Chip Flory, host of AgriTalk AM and leader of the western leg of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour. “This crop is still a crapshoot this year.”
Read: Relentless rain muddies the crop production picture across the Corn Belt
Follow the Tour: You can follow live tour coverage on profarmer.com, including daily commentary from tour leaders. There will be live video coverage from 8 am CT through 3 pm CT each day with experts out in the fields, analysis for what it means to you and the markets and much more. Follow #PFTour26 on X for Tour-related posts and updates, along with Tour leaders Chip Flory (@ChipFlory) and Lane Akre (@iwatchcorn), data maven Emily Carolan (@emily_floryag14) and @profarmer.
Also, don’t miss these state-by-state breakdowns of what to expect:
- Pro Farmer Crop Tour launches Monday: Scouts eye drought stress in South Dakota, wet-to-dry whiplash in Ohio
- Crop Tour 2026: What to expect in Indiana and Nebraska
- Pro Farmer Crop Tour: Will Illinois disappoint again in 2026?
- Pro Farmer Crop Tour: Is the Corn Belt’s heartland as good as everyone says?
Rail merger opposition: The National Grain and Feed Association on Thursday urged federal rail regulators to reject Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern’s most recent merger application, Agri-Pulse reported, adding to calls from chemical, fuel, fertilizer and industrial transportation interests opposing the deal. NGFA counsel Thomas Wilcox told the Surface Transportation Board, in a comment letter, that a recent UP-NS merger filing failed to consider rail-to-rail competition in its attempt to satisfy the agency’s “competition enhancement” criteria for a merger, the report said. He also said the companies’ proposed Committed Gateway Pricing model “would, at most, temporarily preserve competitive options for a very limited subset of shippers, primarily certain grain shippers.”