Author: staff

American Agri-Women awarded its prestigious Veritas Award to Amanda Radke during its 2024 National Convention, held recently in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The Veritas Award, one of AAW’s highest honors, is given to individuals who have demonstrated public witness to the “pursuit of truth.” Amanda Radke, a fifth-generation rancher from Mitchell, South Dakota, was recognized for her extraordinary commitment to advancing agriculture, rural communities, and food security. Radke, alongside her husband, Tyler, and their four children, operate Radke Land & Cattle, an Angus seedstock operation. Her work exemplifies the resilience and passion of American agriculturalists. Image courtesy of American Agri-Women…

Cold weather has arrived in our neck of the woods, the intense type of chill that hurts your face when you step outside. The mere act of going outdoors feels like being slapped. I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War wherein we worried about being turned into human French fries by Russian nukes. A more immediate concern was our War on Cold, which took place from October through April and involved worrying about becoming human popsicles.  Warm clothing is our frontline defense in the War on Cold. This means layering up, starting with undergarments. As cold weather…

March corn is up 2½¢ this morning. March soybeans are down 3¢. March wheat contracts are higher. CBOT wheat is up 1½¢. KC wheat is up 5¼¢. Minneapolis wheat is up 4¢. “Light buying gave the overnight session support as futures corrected from last week’s poor close,” said Karl Setzer, partner at Consus Ag Consulting. “There was very little fresh news to start the week, and this will likely be the case for the next several sessions. This is the last full week of trade for the calendar year and elevated positioning is a given. This will likely create choppy,…

Listen to the Podcast Meet Jodie Nay Jodie Nay is an organic wheat farmer and cattle producer from Hereford, Colorado. She captures the beauty of her family’s farm and ranch in photographs and shares them with the rest of the world through her social media accounts, Views From the Farm. Nay chooses to let her images of the Eastern Plains of Colorado speak for themselves. While she answers questions her followers may have about farming and ranching, she uses minimal captions in an effort to let readers come to their own conclusions.  Jodie Nay, Views From the Farm I just…

1. Corn Futures Rise Slightly in Overnight Trading Corn futures were modestly higher in overnight trading after the U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed its outlook for ending stocks.  Inventories at the end of the 2024/2025 marketing year on Aug. 31 are now forecast at 1.738 billion bushels, down from a previous outlook for 1.938 billion, USDA said in its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.  Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting a much more modest decline to 1.906 billion bushels.  Increased forecasts for food, seed and industrial use, ethanol production and exports all led to the reduced…

By Nada Hassanein If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to deport millions of immigrants, it could upend the economies of states where farming and other food-related industries are crucial — and where labor shortages abound. Immigrants make up about two-thirds of the nation’s crop farmworkers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and roughly two in five of them are not legally authorized to work in the United States. Agricultural industries such as meatpacking, dairy farms, and poultry and livestock farms also rely heavily on immigrants. “We have five to six employees that do the work that…

Some 68% of large crop farms use precision agriculture technology that generates information that aids decision-making by operators, such as yield monitors, yield maps, and soil maps, said the USDA on Tuesday. The annual “Farms and Ranches at a Glance” report showed higher-volume farms are heavy users of the technology, notwithstanding earlier reports showing a low usage rate by farmers nationwide. Large operators said they adopted precision agriculture (PA) technology to increase yields, reduce input costs, and reduce operator fatigue. By contrast, few small farms employed the technology. Adoption “increases with farm size primarily because larger farms can benefit more…

1. Soybean Futures Lower in Overnight Trading Soybean futures were lower in overnight trading amid disappointing export sales.  Sales of U.S. beans totaled 1.17 million metric tons in the seven days that ended on Dec. 5, the Department of Agriculture said in a report. That’s down 49% from the previous week and 42% from the prior four-week average, the agency said.  China was the big buyer at 705,000 tons, followed by Spain at 245,800 tons and Mexico at 156,500 tons, USDA said.  Grain sales also plunged week to week.  Corn sales dropped to 946,900 tons, down 45% from the week…

By Jeff Beach North Dakota’s Industrial Commission on Thursday approved a plan to accept millions of tons of carbon dioxide to be permanently stored underground against the wishes of some landowners in the storage area.  Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions plans to build a network of pipelines that gathers carbon emissions from ethanol plants across five states. If built, the pipeline will end west of Bismarck, where three injection wells will pump the carbon deep beneath private property into pore space — gaps and voids between the rocks.  Summit compensates landowners for use of their pore space but an attorney for a…

By Christopher Ingraham The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Thursday to grant a long-awaited permit to Summit Carbon Solutions, allowing the company to build a small portion of a planned 2,500-mile carbon capture pipeline network across the Midwest. The Minnesota segment would run 28 miles from an ethanol plant in Fergus Falls to the North Dakota border. It would consist of 4.5-inch diameter pipe sunk 54 inches underground. The company estimates construction could start as early as 2026, although it is still negotiating right-of-way agreements with seven landowners along the route. The pipeline would transport pressurized carbon dioxide from the ethanol plant to…