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Jan 15 | Closing Market Report · Closing Market Report

• 0:00
  Todd Gleason: From the Land deGrant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report. It is the January 2025. I'm extension's Tuck Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett.
• 0:12
  He's from agmarket.net. I'll update you on some of the agricultural news for the time, and we'll take a look at the weather forecast too in South America, particularly with Argentina and Brazil's crops coming into an important part of their growing season. We'll do that with Mike Tenora, T Storm Weather out of Naperville, Illinois, all on this Thursday edition of the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension. March corn for the day settled at $4.20 and a quarter opinion three quarters lower than May down 2¢ at $4.27 and 3 quarters in December.
• 0:53
  New crop down 1¢ at $4.46 and 3 quarters of a cent a bushel. March soybeans, $10.53, up 10 and a half. New crop November, six and a quarter higher at $10.64 and a quarter. Weed futures for the soft red down two at $5.10 and a half. In the March, the hard red down 5¢.
• 1:11
  Matt Bennett now joins us from agmarket.net to take a look at the marketplace. Hi, Matt. Thanks for being with us. I take it you've had a busy week.
• 1:19
  Matt Bennett: Yeah. You know, this week, I had a presentation every day, so it's been it's been very busy. Got to do one Monday, two hours after the report was released. So that was a lot of fun. But regardless, you know, it's it's always fun presenting to an angry mom, but everyone seemed to understand that it wasn't my fault.
• 1:39
  So that helps just a little bit.
• 1:41
  Todd Gleason: Indeed, it does. Where have you been making presentations, and what did producers in those areas have to say?
• 1:47
  Matt Bennett: Well, you know, it was interesting. Monday and Tuesday, I had presentations for comp beer up in Southern Minnesota. And to be honest, those guys were in a pretty good mood. They relayed to me that for the most part, fantastic crop up there. A lot of guys posted all time record yields, moved down to Lincoln, Nebraska, and did one down there.
• 2:12
  I was just there a week ago farther west. But whenever I talked to those guys, was more of a mixed bag. And then I was in Kentucky at the Commodity Conference in Bowling Green, And those guys said that they didn't have great yields this year and just flat out a bad year. And so you hear a little bit of everything whenever you're out and about. But one thing that remains very consistent is the skepticism of the USDA's report there on Monday.
• 2:42
  Todd Gleason: There were a couple of things. When I talked with Freyne Olsen from NDSU on Tuesday of this week, he talked about in in the Minnesota area particularly that their silage was so good that they filled their bunkers and then just left for the rest of what was gonna be silage to be corn that was actually good for harvest, and that made up some of those acres. And then Seth Meyer, who is the former, just recently left, had a conversation with me on Twitter or X, you may have seen, talking about that acreage. And he said it goes all the way back to the June acreage report and how USDA dealt with harvested acres once those numbers started to change in September and October. I'm wondering what you thought of all those conversations or what you came up with as a reason for that more than one, million acres of corn to show up that were harvested.
• 3:41
  Matt Bennett: You know, whenever you look at planted acres going up 100,000, it definitely raises an eyeball as to why wood harvested acres go up 1,200,000 acres. Totally get that. It's it's it's kinda hard to reason with. But at the same time, we got to remember that everything doesn't always have to make sense whenever it comes to USDA report. And in this case, it certainly didn't.
• 4:06
  So, you know, overall, I think one thing we have to consider is that there's a decent chance that acres from a planted standpoint might have ended up being a lot bigger than what we thought. And so if that's the case, you know, they may have been trying to true some of that up, if you will. And so, I do think that, some of this that was put into silage, potentially didn't get fed as silage and maybe, some of that, you know, went into just flat out being corn. But at the same time, it's pretty tough to tell, you know, at this stage of the game. Think whenever we look at it from a big picture standpoint, one thing that we know for certain is that it was an awfully big crop.
• 4:50
  It just seemed like they threw every bit of bearish information on at us on Monday that they possibly could, and I think that that's something that really frustrated growers.
• 4:58
  Todd Gleason: You and I both worked closely with Daryl Good. Me over the years, you as a student in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois. He always says that the January report sets the tone for the first three months or the quarter of the year. How do you see this playing out and what should farmers think about over January, February and March?
• 5:20
  Matt Bennett: Yeah. I do think that the grower is probably going to be tight fisted to a degree. I think there's a chance you could see some basis appreciation. There's no doubt that the guys that we've talked to have said lines haven't been what they thought they might be. And so I don't know how much corn is getting delivered.
• 5:38
  But overall, I agree, of course. And I've always tried to live by the same thing Darrell's talking about there is that you're usually going to see the tone set for some time, which is pretty disheartening, I know, for growers. And so if you're looking to move cash, you're probably going to have to have just a little bit of patience in here. You know, as far as new crop goes, I think that's where I'm even more concerned is that, you know, when it comes to new crop, you're looking at a lower insurance price. By all intents and purposes, I think you're gonna end up with, you know, maybe a $4.50 type price if you're lucky.
• 6:13
  And unfortunately, we all know that our input costs are quite a bit higher. So that is where my biggest concern lies. I know we have to get rid of this old crop still, but at the same time, you know, we've at least had a fighting chance to get rid of some of that old crop at a decent price level. We got a little bit aggressive towards the end of the week last week and sold out of got up to 50% as far as our on farm bushels were concerned. And then we just bought a February call for the report because we thought, you know, who knows?
• 6:42
  You know, you might get in a position where you get some sort of a rally you don't want to miss out on, but that cost us a nickel, you know, because it was an at the money call that expired in two weeks and, you know, that that strategy looks good right now. But the reason we did that is because a lot of folks said we need money, and when we're gonna we're not gonna be able to withstand a massive drop in prices. So we just wanna come up with something that'll give them a chance to get their hands on some funds and not feel like they were forced into selling, you know, on a down report.
• 7:12
  Todd Gleason: It appears that mandates related to soybean oil were the issue behind the rise in the market for soybeans today. Was that the case?
• 7:20
  Matt Bennett: Yeah. I mean, that's what we're hearing as well. That couldn't be better timed news, if you will. And so, there's no doubt that as you continue to see this build out in the crush industry, what we've seen is that every month, we've had really strong crush. And so we need domestic consumption of beans like it's going out of style.
• 7:42
  There's no doubt that domestic consumption of corn is something that's gonna be heavily talked about moving forward. There's a lot of clamoring for e 15, which is not going to fix all of our problems by any stretch of the imagination. But at the same time, you know, if you could get year round e 15, it would certainly gobble up some bushels that, we need to find a home for. And, domestic consumption's gotta be something that we all are looking at as something that we need and we need desperately.
• 8:09
  Todd Gleason: Do you have the same concerns for new crop soybeans that you do for new crop corn?
• 8:13
  Matt Bennett: Yeah. I mean, as far as new crop soybeans go, you know, after that report, you've got to assume that there will be some instances where growers will opt to plant soybeans just simply due to the fact that neither corn nor soybeans look good at this stage of the game. And which one would you rather, put out there, something that costs substantially less or something that costs more? And, you know, the FarmDoc team put, some data out here this week, and it showed that in each region in Illinois soybeans are forecasted to actually look a little bit better than corn. And so I know a lot of us, we want to plant corn.
• 8:46
  We love planting corn here in The US. But in this liquidity crunch situation that we're in, in my opinion, you're going to have to take a long hard look. And in some cases, think you'll get some help from your banker on that as well to where you may just have to plant some beans in certain places because it might be tough to come up with the funding to put a very expensive corn crop in the ground, especially whenever you're looking at four forty five, four fifty corn.
• 9:10
  Todd Gleason: Hey. Thanks much, and safe travels back to Illinois.
• 9:13
  Matt Bennett: Absolutely, Todd. Have a good one.
• 9:14
  Todd Gleason: You too. That's Matt Bennett. He is with agmarket.net. Here's a quick look at today's agricultural news. US agricultural market for farmland is shifting after years of steady growth.
• 9:31
  Although land values are still historically high, current signs indicate a more complex situation driven by local and regional factors rather than nationwide trends. After years of steady growth, we're seeing the farmland market stabilize, says Colton Lansina. He's the senior vice president of real estate options at Farmers National Company. He says this is not a sign of a collapse, but a recalibration that reflects current commodity prices. Farmland demand now varies widely by location.
• 10:00
  Areas with high crop yields, diversified farms, and dependable groundwater continue to attract buyers and maintain steady values. While lawmakers are wanting to expedite the processing of Farmers Assistance Program or the Bridge Payment, Senator Amy Klobuchar, ranking member of the Senate AG Committee, led 11 of her colleagues in pushing ag secretary Brooke Rollins to expedite and increase payouts in disaster and economic assistance programs. They're pressing for faster payout because of the numerous headwinds challenging them as farmers face continued trade uncertainty, rising input costs, and natural disasters. She says we encourage you to speed up economic disaster assistance to benefit all farmers. And finally today, secretary Rollins says the administration fully supports year round e 15 sales, but that it's up to congress to get it done.
• 10:53
  Rollins told a farm audience that the president's early executive order cited year round e 15 as a solution to the nation's energy needs. And that's a look at today's agricultural news. And now for something just a little different and directly from the United States Department of Agriculture. The dinner plate, as you know, is getting a major makeover as federal officials unveil a dramatic shift in how Americans are being told to eat. Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS secretary Robert f Kennedy junior have officially released the 2025 to 2030 dietary guidelines for Americans, moving away from decades of low fat advice toward a new mantra, eat real food.
• 11:50
  USDA's Rod Bain has more on what this real food pivot means for grocery list and federal feeding programs.
• 11:59
  Rodney Bain: To give context how long the US Department of Agriculture has been involved in issuing some form of dietary recommendations for all Americans, when that first set of USDA advice occurred in 1894, several vitamins and minerals identified today as important nutrients and foods were not even yet discovered. Over time, what is now known as the Health and Human Services Department joined USDA in presenting the recommendations, the dietary guidelines for Americans on a five year cycle. The start of 2026 saw the release of the latest set of guidelines covering the years 2025 through 2030. So why are these guidelines significant? HHS secretary Robert f Kennedy junior points out they formed the basis of dozens of federal feeding programs.
• 12:48
  Think Head Start as one example.
• 12:50
  Robert F. Kennedy: These standards affect 45,000,000 school lunches every day. Meals for 1,300,000 active duty service members and food served to 9,000,000 veterans in VA hospitals.
• 13:03
  Rodney Bain: As for the new dietary guidelines, perhaps one key takeaway, according to agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins, is the emphasis Eat
• 13:11
  Brooke Rollins: real food.
• 13:12
  Rodney Bain: The explanation according to the HHS secretary is a change of emphasis regarding food groups.
• 13:18
  Robert F. Kennedy: Protein and healthy fats are essential. Diets rich in vegetables and fruits reduce disease. Risk all grains outperform refined carbohydrates.
• 13:29
  Rodney Bain: Plus limiting of highly processed foods, added sugars, and artificial additives among other recommendations. Agriculture Secretary Rollins sums up the primary focus of the new dietary guidelines from a health perspective. Prevention. Of chronic health issues and diseases through consumption of a healthier diet. HHS secretary Kennedy explains this monetarily.
• 13:52
  Robert F. Kennedy: The CDC reports that 90% of health care spending treats chronic disease. That means that 40%, 40¢ of every dollar that taxpayers pay in this country is going to treat diseases that could be averted through good food.
• 14:08
  Rodney Bain: To further explain the breakdown of the new dietary guidelines for Americans at the recent announcement, a familiar concept was reintroduced to consumers, a food guide pyramid. However, more reflecting The upside down with proteins, dairy, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables at the wide base of the top of the pyramid. Tailored nutrition recommendations are also provided within the dietary guidelines for infants and children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women, older adults, those with chronic disease, and vegetarians and vegans.
• 14:43
  Brooke Rollins: These new dietary guidelines are a framework which is meant to be customized to meet the needs, the preferences, and the financial status of all American families. For example, a meal including such items as pork or eggs or whole milk or cheese, tomatoes, other fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, whole grain bread, corn tortilla can cost today right around $3 for that meal.
• 15:07
  Rodney Bain: Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins adds the new dietary guidelines for Americans also provides expanded opportunity for American agriculture to be at the forefront of improving our citizens' health and nutrition.
• 15:20
  Brooke Rollins: This pivot leans into the abundant, affordable, and healthy food supply already available from America's incredible farmers and ranchers. Making milk, raising cattle, and growing wholesome fruits, vegetables, and grains, they hold the key to solving our national health crisis.
• 15:38
  Rodney Bain: More details about the dietary guidelines for Americans for 2025, 2030 can be found online.
• 15:46
  Todd Gleason: Our thanks go to USDA's Rod Bain for that update. If you'd like to visit the dietary guidelines online, you can do so. The address is realfood.gov. That's realfood.gov. On that point, I think it is of interest that the last two administrations, democrats that is, Obama and Biden administration, who used the same secretary of agriculture for the twelve year period, pushed for more real food but in a different way, that through farmers markets.
• 16:33
  Let's turn our attention now to the world's growing regions. We'll talk today with Mike Tenure. He's the president and CEO at Teastorm Weather in Naperville, Illinois. Hi, Mike. Thanks for being with us again today.
• 16:46
  I want to talk primarily about South America. That crop is in the middle of its growing season. It's a large nation, so there's a wide variation. However, it
• 16:57
  Mike Tannura: is
• 16:57
  Todd Gleason: the number one soybean producing continent on the planet, and Brazil is number one in soybean production. Where do we stand there today climate and production wise in your opinion?
• 17:10
  Mike Tannura: Well, they've had an interesting growing season. You might recall that it started very dry over the first third of the season, but then we had a lot of rain over the first few weeks of December. And that essentially wiped out all of that dryness and left conditions among the wettest, if not the wettest, of the last seven years for late December and into January. The rains, though, they shut down in late December and January, and there hasn't been very much since, especially in the central and north. And so that's causing the coverage of dryness to elevate, and it now includes about half of their soybean production when measured over the last thirty days or so.
• 17:48
  Now this is not a major concern as long as it starts to rain, and this is where things get a little bit complicated. If we look at these northern areas where they do need rain, there is a much wetter period that's going to form early next week and then last for at least seven days. So we think that the situation there is going to improve. In the southern areas though where we haven't really had too much of a dryness story at all this season, it has been drying out a little bit over the last five to seven days, and there's very little rain ahead over the next ten to fourteen days. So by the time you put all this together, it's kind of a mixed bag where these areas that are a little too dry now get wetter.
• 18:29
  The areas that are okay get drier. And typically when it gets really complicated like this, it probably means that we're just in a normal growing season because we don't have this great story where it's wet and wet and wet, and that's exactly what you want for a huge crop. But it's not dry, dry, dry, dry where you clearly have a problem. We're kind of in that middle zone where summer is a little dry, summer is a little wet, raining here, not raining there, and just not a real exciting story which probably means that we're just having a normal growing season.
• 19:03
  Todd Gleason: Further to the south in Argentina, are there any things that we should be watching or that you're paying attention to in particular?
• 19:10
  Mike Tannura: Well, it's been drying out a lot there over the last couple of months, and there's very little question that they're in a little bit of a drought as we speak today. Now the severity of this drought is not huge. There's certainly been drier periods even in the last five to ten years. So this is not super alarming at the moment. But our concern is that there's not a whole lot of rain in the forecast.
• 19:32
  Now if you just look at the Argentina weather forecast real briefly, you might conclude, I don't know what he's talking about. There's a lot of rain on the way. There is heavy rain on the way in Northern Argentina, but this area only accounts for maybe 10% to 20% of their corn, soybeans, and sunflower, so it's kind of a fringe growing region. In the key areas of the Central and South, there's very little rain on the way this week or next week. That'll bring us into late January.
• 19:58
  If we don't get rains in late January or early February, then you will have a problem there because it's just there's just not enough soil moisture in place to handle the amount of drying that's coming up. And this is fairly consistent with the weak La Nina that we're in right now with water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean just a little bit colder than normal. So we'll be keeping an eye on all of that. But Todd, the one thing again to kind of add to the complexity of this year's growing season in South America, If you look at Argentina, they produce around 50,000,000 metric tons of soybeans, at least that's what they're projected to do. That's actually really small compared to Brazil, which you talked about earlier.
• 20:38
  I mean, they're producing almost a 180,000,000 metric tons, so there's a big difference. These countries are not equal as far as their soybean production goes. That wasn't the case fifteen, twenty years ago where they were much closer together, but nowadays it's different. So that kind of plays into this too. A bad growing season in Argentina can be overridden by a good growing season in Brazil.
• 21:01
  Todd Gleason: I have a question about that because I understand the supply side for soybeans, larger acreage or hectares, whichever one you want to use, out of Brazil, probably making up maybe for whatever losses, if there are any, in Argentina because of weather. Brazil also an exporter of corn. They play on the marketplace, but that's the second crop corn, not the first crop, which Argentina would be a player in. Does that make much of a difference as it's related to production and and, weather in your opinion?
• 21:34
  Mike Tannura: Well, yeah, I think that's a much, clearer story. If you look at Argentina corn production, they produce quite a bit compared to Brazil, especially at this time of the year. As you noted, Brazil produces an early crop and a second crop. The second crop does not get planted until February and March with the key period of weather in April and May. That amount of corn dominates their entire supply side and also their export side.
• 22:00
  You look at Argentina though, they produce a lot of corn. Basically, they planted in October. It kind of goes on through December and is important right now and certainly in February. That crop can be affected by poor weather now, which it is being affected by. And that has a much larger effect, on the overall supply, regardless of what Brazil does because Brazil's crop is still in the future here to be planted.
• 22:26
  So, yeah, I think this is a bigger concern for corn than soybeans at the moment, and that'll put just more pressure on that second crop in Brazil coming up. Because if we do have a problem here in Argentina, you know, that would be a negative for them. And you still have the chance to get out of the situation with a nice Brazil crop, but that's still months out, so you can't really think too hard about it yet.
• 22:47
  Todd Gleason: Hey. Thanks much. I appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
• 22:50
  Mike Tannura: Sounds great, Ted.
• 22:51
  Todd Gleason: Mike Tenure is the president and CEO at T Storm Weather in Naperville, Illinois. I'm joined us here on the closing market report from Illinois Public Media. It's public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.org. I'm Todd Gleason.