Author: staff

By Cami Koons Iowa farmers had just over two days suitable for field work last week due to rainy conditions, but the percentages of corn and soybean acres planted remain ahead of average rates, according to the state’s crop progress and condition report. State Climatologist Justin Glisan said Iowa had “an unseasonably wet reporting period” with the average precipitation for the week above 2 inches and more than 5 inches in some areas of the state.  The precipitation raised soil moisture conditions, making topsoil conditions 86% adequate or wetter. Subsoil conditions rated 67% adequate moisture. Thirty-four percent of Iowa’s corn acres…

What Happened Many agricultural commodities have tradeable futures and options contracts. Few industries offer an avenue to manage risk and opportunities the way the various exchanges for agriculture do. Today, we’ll use corn as an example. Corn is traded at the Chicago Board of Trade. Traders have the ability to buy and sell futures or buy and sell options. Our focus will narrow down to selling call option premium to create a revenue stream while, at the same time, challenging the underlying futures contract to rally. Why This Is Important For many years, the corn market has offered little positive…

By Zach Wendling LINCOLN — Gov. Jim Pillen enacted a new burn ban Tuesday for central and western Nebraska through May 10 in response to continued “very dry” conditions. The new executive order rescinds a previous mandate last week prohibiting permitted burns statewide through the end of the month. With the new order, burns are allowed in eastern Nebraska unless there is an active red flag warning issued by the National Weather Service for a specific area. The initial burn ban came after a prescribed fire April 21 got out of control in the Plum Creek area near Johnstown in Brown County. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than…

By Nick Paulson, Gary Schnitkey, and Carl Zulauf The USDA’s harvest-season estimates were for 2024 U.S. corn and soybean yields to be above trend because of good to excellent conditions throughout most of the growing season. Those yield estimates were revised down following the 2024 harvest season, with final U.S. yields coming in slightly below trend for both corn and soybeans. While early yield estimates for Illinois were also revised down, 2024 corn and soybean yields ended above trend, extending a 12-year run of excellent corn and soybean yield performance in Illinois. Since the 2012 drought, Illinois yields have fallen below trend for…

By Tom Polansek and Savyata Mishra April 29 (Reuters) – China, the world’s biggest pork consumer, is no longer a viable market for top U.S. pork processor Smithfield Foods SFD.O due to retaliatory tariffs by Beijing, company executives said on Tuesday. The disruption shows how the tariff war escalated by U.S. President Donald Trump is upending global trade and forcing changes at a prominent food company that pays U.S. farmers to raise hogs that are slaughtered for meat. China increased its levies on imports of U.S. goods this month, hitting back at Trump’s decision to single out the world’s No. 2 economy for higher duties. Beijing’s additional tariffs pushed…

It’s normally a two-person job to align a grain auger to the grain bin fill opening: one person on top of the grain bin giving hand signals to the tractor operator below. What do you do when there is no second person to help? The exhausting process begins with backing the tractor and auger to a position that appears adequate. The operator then gets out of the tractor, climbs the ladder on the grain bin, checks to see what adjustments need to be made, climbs back down, gets back into the tractor, and moves it as needed. This whole process…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the proverb observes, which explains why your brand preference generally influences your view of tractor beauty. There are a great many examples of aesthetically pleasing tractors. The Farmall 1206, the Deere 30 Series, the Massey-Harris 101, the Minnie-Mo UDLX, and the Oliver 70 are just a few of the lovelies the industry has fashioned. But for sheer striking good looks, the Graham-Bradley tractor owns eyeball honors as the most glamorous tractor of all time. Starting with that spectacular grille sweeping back to its streamlined side curtains – all touched off with a…

By Leah Douglas WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) – The National Academy of Sciences has canceled a workshop on preventing human bird flu infections after being told to stop work on the event by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an email sent to one of the workshop presenters and seen by Reuters. Bird flu has infected 70 people, most of them farmworkers, over the past year as it has spread aggressively among cattle herds and poultry flocks. Experts, including CDC officials during the previous administration of President Joe Biden, warned that further spread of the virus could allow it to…

Corn planting got off to an uneven start last month across top corn-growing states. Near-perfect conditions pushed some growers ahead, while persistent rain left others stuck on the sidelines.  Even within the same Corn Belt state, conditions have varied widely, creating a patchwork of progress across the region. Here’s a look back at April, drawing on USDA’s first four Crop Progress reports of the season and insights from agronomists. Iowa Although corn planting in Iowa tracked with the five-year pace for the first couple weeks of April, the state’s corn planting surged the week ending April 20. Progress continued to…

In her first 100 days as secretary of agriculture under the Trump Administration, Brooke Rollins has taken aggressive steps to refocus the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of her mission to put “Farmers First.” The policy under Rollins has reprioritized some of the doctrine of Trump’s previous Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who adopted the slogan “Do Right and Feed Everyone” in his tenure. Rollins has zeroed in on the rollback of what she describes as the Biden Administration’s “woke Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda,” aiming instead to build a USDA that emphasizes “unity, equality, meritocracy, and color-blind policies.” “It…