Check our advice monitor at ProFarmer.com for our marketing plan.
Fighting between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea region has regained grain traders’ attention, helping lift wheat futures in particular. Drones on Tuesday morning hit two commercial ships off the coast of Bulgaria, news reports said, sinking one and setting the other on fire. The attack was the first of its kind in Bulgarian waters. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev told reporters it wasn’t immediately clear where the drones had originated but had undoubtedly come from either Russia or Ukraine, the New York Times reported.
Radev said that one of the ships, which had been sailing under the flag of Togo, sank after being hit and that rescuers were searching for surviving crew members, the report said. The other ship, which was sailing south with wheat on board, caught fire, and at least two of its sailors were wounded. On Monday, Ukraine blamed Russia for an attack that sank a ship carrying corn in the Black Sea outside Romania’s territorial waters, killing two crew members.
“The attacks represent a significant escalation in the threat to commercial shipping in the western Black Sea,” maritime security firm MARISKS said in an advisory in which it advised captains and operators to watch out for drone activity in the area, according to Reuters. “Of particular concern is the apparent geographic expansion of incidents beyond waters immediately adjacent to Ukraine and into the EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones) of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria.”
Attacks on ports, infrastructure and shipping are seen further curtailing the prospect of a resumption in grain flows out of the Black Sea and raised fears that alternative routes are under increasing danger.
- “This appears to be the first reported drone attack on merchant vessels inside Bulgaria’s EEZ,” Andrey Sizov of consulting firm SovEcon, said in a post on X. “The Black Sea shipping crisis keeps spreading west. It seems Russia is seriously trying to shut down Ukraine’s Danube ports this time.”
Market recap: Deteriorating corn and soybean conditions, harvest running behind schedule and continued reports of quality problems in the western Corn Belt helped lift grain futures. No letup in fighting in the Black Sea between Russia and Ukraine was also supportive for wheat futures. Cattle futures saw strong gains on technical buying and firm boxed beef values, while hog futures pulled back after hitting a two-week high.
- December corn rose 10 ¾ cents to $5.08, near the session high.
- November soybeans rose 22 ¼ cents to $13.03, ending near the daily high.
- December soybean meal gained $7.70 to end at $354.80, near the daily high.
- December soybean oil gained 56 points to 69.91 cents, hitting a three-week high.
- December SRW wheat rose 12 cents to end at $7.04 ¼, near the daily high.
- December HRW wheat gained 14 cents to close at $7.56 ¼, near the daily high.
- December spring wheat futures rose 11 ¾ cents to close at $7.19 ¾.
- December cotton futures gained 35 points on short covering and bargain buying to end at 81.21 cents, nearer the daily high.
- December live cattle ended $4.125 higher to $224.10, near the daily high and hitting a three-week high. November feeder cattle rose $8.15 to $338.275, hitting a 2.5-month high.
- December lean hog futures fell 57.5 cents to $70.375, nearer the daily low after hitting a two-week high on Monday.
Combat pay: Oil tanker captains in the Gulf are being paid the equivalent of $100,000 a month to travel through the Strait of Hormuz, along with a bonus of $50,000 for each trip, the Financial Times reported. The “danger money” comes as Iran ramps up assaults on vessels moving through the waterway. The report said regular sailors, whose normal monthly salaries begin as low as $1,500, and captains, whose regular pay is around $15,000 a month, get double pay while in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Oman, with further increases during each Hormuz transit. Regular sailors are collecting four to six times their normal rates when transiting the strait, the FT said, noting that at least 14 attacks have taken place since Sept. 20, according to Vanguard, a maritime security company.
Sentiment sinks: Farmer sentiment fell in September, with the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer sliding to 123 points from 135 in August as a record percentage of respondents cited high input costs as their top worry and less than half said the U.S. was on the “right track.” High input costs remain the primary financial drag on producers, cited as a top concern by a record 52% of survey respondents and identified by 54% as the main factor limiting improvements to their operation’s financial health. Despite near-term cost pressures, long-term outlooks on farmland values reached a record high of 168. Additionally, a large majority (73%) of corn and soybean growers expect cash rents to remain stable in 2027. Read: Farmer sentiment drops in September as worries grow over rising input costs
Land O’Lakes’ CEO warns on farm squeeze: Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford highlighted a critical early warning signal in agricultural credit as reserve loan demand at the company’s financing arm surged tenfold rising from $100 million last year to over $1 billion today, reports Top Producer’s Margy Eckelkamp. Speaking in New York, Ford noted that farmers are borrowing against next year’s crop before finishing this harvest as operating balance sheets face severe pressure. Ford cited USDA data showing that input costs have climbed $15 billion since February and noted that diesel costs have roughly doubled and that farm bankruptcies are up 19% year-to-date. Rising interest rates, multi-year crop losses, and increasing farmland purchases by non-local financial buyers continue to erode farmer equity across the sector.
Plague questions: Russian authorities face mounting international pressure to provide more details on the death of Daria Shipilova, a 28-year-old worker at a Siberian plague research institute who died a few days after falling ill, the Wall Street Journal reported. While local reports sparked fears of pneumonic plague, Russian officials claim she died of unknown pneumonia and reported no symptomatic contacts. Neighboring countries like Kazakhstan have instituted border checks, and U.S. officials are urging transparency, the report said. However, the Journal also noted that health experts emphasize that widespread global transmission remains unlikely, as plague requires close contact to spread, acts quickly, and responds to prompt antibiotic treatment.
‘Mag 7’ drives stock index records: U.S. stocks rallied Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite scoring record highs, shaking off a recent rise in global bond yields. MarketWatch noted that stocks of the so-called Magnificent 7 companies – Google parent Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla – that have been the big beneficiaries of the artificial-intelligence boom were staging a comeback, closing Tuesday with a combined market capitalization – the value of all outstanding shares – above $25 trillion for the first time.