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Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman released a discussion draft of the farm bill that would reauthorize certain programs through 2031, Agri-Pulse reported. The report said Republican members of the committee are touting the draft as an effort to update federal initiatives aimed at giving producers more certainty while providing added support for rural communities, agricultural trade and national food security. The bill leaves out the thorniest issues that slowed the path to passage for the House version of the bill earlier this year. The bill doesn’t include a provision in the House bill that would nullify animal-welfare state laws like California’s Prop 12 nor does it contain language that would establish federal supremacy on pesticide labeling, the report noted.
Iran says it will decide what it buys with unfrozen funds: Iranian officials on Tuesday pushed back on assertions by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD. Vance that Tehran would use any funds unfrozen as a result of peace talks to purchase U.S. agricultural goods and other items. Trump, in a Truth Social post, said Tuesday that the money would be going into escrow, “controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American Farmers.” The remarks echoed earlier comments made by Trump on Monday as well as remarks by Vance.
Reuters reported that Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said the two sides had good talks but said Tehran would decide how to spend released funds. “Iran is the only country to decide what to do with its assets, which are going to be defrozen, and so I reject any claim about that if there would be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those processes,” Bahreini told reporters in Geneva.
The fight for China’s soybean market: CNBC reported on efforts by U.S. soybean growers to win back Chinese soybean buyers by emphasizing quality. “Soybean production in North America and soybean production in South America is very different,” Carlos Salinas, executive director, East Asia, at the U.S. Soybean Export Council said in a presentation Tuesday at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing. He compared a range of weather factors between a city in Brazil and one in the U.S. state of Illinois, such as rainfall in the 30 days ahead of harvest: 231 millimeters versus 72 mm, the report said.
- “What we really encourage buyers in soy to do is to make sure they’re educating themselves on this to go deeper,” Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council told CNBC on the sidelines of the event, noting new ways to measure quality and nutrition, especially for animal feed.
Heat building in the Plains: Temps have moderated after hitting 111 in parts of the Plains over the weekend, but the southern Plains are likely to heat up again over the next week and become a heat source for other parts of the central and eastern US – translating into excessive heat advisories and warnings for both people and livestock from the central and southern Plains into the Midwest and Delta, wrote meteorologist Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc., in a Tuesday afternoon forecast.
A part of the storm system that reaches Canada’s Prairies this weekend will move across the top of the high-pressure ridge over eastern North America next week flattening the ridge before pushing it back into the central U.S. Once the ridge is back over the Great Plains it may drift into a part of the Rocky Mountain region and high Plains where it is likely to fester for a while, Lerner wrote.
Dollar climb continues: A strengthening U.S. dollar continued to put pressure on the commodity complex Tuesday, contributing to a weaker tone across much of the grain complex. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, rose to a 13-month high, boosted in part by the potential for higher U.S. interest rates (see item below).
Diesel falls below $5 a gallon: The weekly average on-highway price of U.S. diesel fuel fell to $4.832 as of June 23, the Energy Information Administration reported Tuesday, down from $5.059 the previous week. The benchmark serves as the basis for most fuel surcharges, according to Freightwaves. It remains up from $3.809 the week before the war started in late February. The recent drop comes as oil futures slide back toward prewar levels on a pickup in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as U.S.-Iran peace talks continue.
Russia considers diesel-export ban: Russia is weighing a ban on diesel exports to avoid domestic shortages following Ukraine’s intensified attacks on the nation’s refineries, Bloomberg reported. A ban could put added pressure on global fuel supplies already disrupted by the Iran war. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the possible ban would be in addition to existing curbs on gasoline and jet-fuel flows, the report said.
Tech rout deepens: Falling oil prices did little to calm an intensifying tech selloff. Fears the Federal Reserve may act to tighten policy and unease over the pace of AI spending plans, which had previously bolstered the market, were getting the blame for the downturn. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed 579.56 points lower, down 2.2%, to end at 25,587.04. The S&P 500 dropped 107.33 points, or 1.4%, to close at 7,365.46. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average, less exposed to tech, ended nearly flat on the day.
- Fears of rising interest rates — and the higher bond yields that often accompany them — can be particularly negative for tech stocks because their valuations depend heavily on earnings expected far into the future. As Treasury yields rise, those future cash flows are discounted at a higher rate, reducing their value in today’s dollars.