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Mar 17 | Closing Market Report · Closing Market Report

• 0:00
  Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the March 2026. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets and the agricultural energies with Dave Chatterton. He's at Strategic Farm Marketing here in Champaign, Illinois.
• 0:21
  Naomi Bloom from Total Farm Marketing is out of the office for the afternoon. We'll pay tribute to Orient Samuelson who passed yesterday. He's the famed WGN farm broadcaster out of Chicago. Then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast with Don Day at Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Along the way, we'll also hear from Joanna Colucci today.
• 0:43
  She's written an article about the expanding cost of production in Brazil and how that may slow expansion of their soybean acres. It's an article posted to the Farm Doc Daily website already and @willag.org as well, all on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. Corn futures in Chicago finished the day narrowly mixed. Soybeans were up one to three in the nearby and 10¢ in the deferred for the day. Wheat futures were down about 7¢.
• 1:18
  Dave Chatterton from Strategic Farm Marketing now joins us to take a look at the marketplace and the agricultural energies. Hi, Dave. Thanks much for being with us. Kind of one in the same at the moment. Can you give me a good explanation for what happened in the soybeans yesterday?
• 1:36
  Dave Chatterton: Yeah, Todd. I think it's a lot of, you know, speculation that was built in regarding, you know, I think specifically China's, you know, potential for taking another 8,000,000 metric tons of US soybeans, which if true or if realized, I should say, would significantly tighten that U. S. Old crop balance sheet and put us into kind of an untenable or maybe a rationing situation. With the realization over the weekend in the Paris meetings that China indicating that look we would rather look at other U.
• 2:04
  S. Ag commodities rather than soybeans or particularly old crop soybeans. Then the situation of Trump indicating yesterday that the US China summit scheduled for the April may be pushed back up to a month. Kind of the accumulation of that really weighed on the soybeans here. And we saw a big speculative flush.
• 2:23
  We saw a big move in the old crop new crop spread that kind of continued itself into today. And basically just a realignment of I think expectations of what may or may not be coming down the pike for Chinese, you know, soybean purchases, specifically for old crop soybeans. Of course, through in the middle of that, we're now expecting maybe some final, final, finally RVO and SRE allocation, reallocation, you know, figures from the from the EPA at this Trump summit that's been called the, you know, the celebration of ag on the twenty seventh here of the month. So a lot going on in the soybean complex here.
• 2:57
  Todd Gleason: Most are expecting something will be announced from US EPA as it's related to the RVOs. Do we think it will be that good given that there's a big celebration around it?
• 3:07
  Dave Chatterton: Well, I think that's certainly the expectation. That's part of that old crowd, that enthusiasm that we had seen or, you know, price premium built into this soybean complex here in my opinion, Todd. And, know, it's always kind of a crapshoot when we get these two crowds together, and neither one of them seem to be happy for very long, whether it's the ag side or the bio or the the big oil side. And so having them together in the room and having these, you know, this this announcement of the of the RVOs and the s r the RVOs for '26 and '27, the SRE reallocations, all kind of don't think anybody probably not everybody walks out of that room happy, and maybe nobody does. So a middle of the road bet, I think, is probably where we end up.
• 3:45
  But, certainly, there is some optimism on the part of, you know, the the way that the soybean oil has performed here in the last couple of days.
• 3:52
  Todd Gleason: So we'll learn more about that next week and find out exactly what the Trump administration has in mind. The industry, oil and ag, has been waiting for some time. I think the market has an idea that there will be more domestic usage and crush, and has a rough idea what that might be, but I suppose we'll have to just wait and see.
• 4:15
  Dave Chatterton: Well, Todd, yeah, I mean, it's all speculation at this point, and I think, out guessing the Trump administration historically has been kind of a of a money losing proposition. So I think everybody will get something and nobody will get everything. And at the end of the day, probably comes in, you know, close to the expectations that that that we've been talking about. But I'm not sure it makes much of a deal a difference here in the near term. Certainly, you know, we're at a capacity point where we don't have a lot that we can add here in terms of specifically on the the the the green diesel side of the equation here, bio you know, biodiesel side of the equation.
• 4:49
  And we can ramp that up. It'll take a little while. It could certainly grow into next year and, you know, new things coming online, and I think that's the anticipation. And, again, part of that that, you know, better performing new crop into the soybean spectrum versus the old crop here today.
• 5:04
  Todd Gleason: The Strait Of Hormuz remains closed, at least to Israel and The United States. Some of the other nations are working to have it opened for them. Do you think $95 a barrel crude oil will hold it for some time?
• 5:22
  Dave Chatterton: Yeah, Todd. I think it's a little bit tough to really see, you know, sustaining a downturn in the oil or reversing a lot of these gains in the short term here. And so we can, you know, have a better idea that a quote unquote somewhat normal traffic flow or vessel flow is going to resume in in this trade. And as you mentioned, there's a kind of a conditional traffic release by Iran or, you know, ships that are that are, you know, associated with with countries that they feel are friends to them, etcetera. And so there have been a few passengers that have started to pick up here in the last few days, but nowhere near the what we would call the normal traffic flow.
• 6:01
  I think it's gonna take a while for that to really develop. And of course, we're only one small hiccup away from a much more precarious situation if a ship were to be sunk or hijacked or some of the other bad case scenarios that we can envision here. So still a very delicate situation here, and I think gonna take a little bit of time here to unravel. Doesn't seem like Trump is getting a lot of, backers for his plea for other nations to come and help and and, you know, with naval vessels and kind of secure the the passage going through. So I think we still have a few chapters left to write in that book and, you know, a lot of ups and downs in terms of what that means for price volatility.
• 6:42
  Todd Gleason: The last thing we should discuss is the March 31 acreage report. As you've been talking with producers related to their crop insurance, did that give you an idea of what you think might show up as it's related to corn and soybean acres?
• 6:56
  Dave Chatterton: Yeah, Todd. You know, it's interesting when we had I mean, the first estimates came out from S and P Global today ahead of that March 31 perspective plantings. And I believe they peg corn at 95.2 and that would be versus 98 a year ago here in The US. And they had their bean number at 85 versus 81.2. So kind of in line with that expectations.
• 7:15
  Our producers, I think, were leaning a little bit more towards the corn end of the spectrum and maybe slowed down just a little bit here by what's happened with the war in Iran and where these fertilizer and fuel prices have gone and kind of what that might mean. But don't see really a big shift here. Think in the central part of the Corn Belt, you know, producers tend to be pretty sticky with their rotation and don't see a big move away from that. If you're leaning on a lot more beans, certainly there's an expense element to that, but I think that's really a bet on China and their propensity to buy more U. S.
• 7:46
  Soybeans going forward. And of course, the last couple of days, they have reaffirmed that, you know, they say they are committed to the additional 25,000,000 metric tons for the for the next three crop years after this one. So I guess we'll, you know, we'll see how all that plays out. But just not any big shifts, I don't think, in our in our part of the world here, Todd.
• 8:03
  Todd Gleason: Yeah. Thanks much. We'll talk with you again soon enough.
• 8:06
  Dave Chatterton: Thank you.
• 8:06
  Todd Gleason: That's Dave Chatterton. He is with Strategic Farm Marketing. Yesterday, the nation lost a farm broadcaster of consequence. Oren Samuelson, known to everyone in agriculture by just his first name, passed. He'd have turned 92 at the end of this month.
• 8:26
  He has an honorary degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois and the building named after him on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. He founded the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Scholarship Fund, and he was the president of the NAFB in 1965, just five years after his career started at WGN Chicago. He spent sixty years on the air reporting about agriculture and retired in 2020. His friend and colleague Max Armstrong produced a short piece about their work on TV together, and AFB released it this morning in memoriam. It includes both Max and Dorian.
• 9:06
  Orion Samuelson: So I'd say the audience is number one from the standpoint of the enjoyment and fulfillment that I get from this career. They're the greatest people in the world. They're the most giving people in the world. And any time we go out to a farm to do a story, we work at that all the time to find ways to explain what's happening in the rural communities across the country and relate them. Well, in my case, in Downtown Chicago, I have a huge city audience every day at noon, and my goal is to provide useful, timely information for producers and then educational information for consumers who have no idea where their food comes from.
• 10:08
  Max Armstrong: Being a farm broadcaster is, yes, an agriculture journalist. There's no doubt about that. We consider ourselves ag journalists, but farm broadcasters take very seriously that business of being a reliable source for farmers. We also take very seriously telling agriculture's story. And that means explaining things to people who have no contact whatsoever.
• 10:32
  And this has been especially rewarding for me having broadcast carried in one of the biggest cities in America to have people come up to me from all walks of life and say, hey, We heard you and mister Samuelson talking about this on the radio. People who are airline pilots, people who are corporate executives, to have the chance to touch those lives, and we all get to do it. I don't care whether you're on it at Wichita Falls or Sterling or Fort Branch or Princeton or wherever you are. As a farm broadcaster, you have a chance to make a difference in people's lives, and there's something very cool about that. Not just the farmers, but the people that are listening to us from all walks of life.
• 11:11
  You know, you can brighten their day, you can tell them something they didn't know, you can influence on them in some way, and at the end of the day, there's something very cool about that.
• 11:22
  Orion Samuelson: I would say the learning process from fellow NAFB members has been invaluable. I have learned so much on what to do and how to do it. I'd say that is the most valuable.
• 11:36
  Max Armstrong: I think what I learned from these seasoned veterans that I was around as a much younger farm broadcaster was humility, to be a good listener, to be a friend, you know, and have somebody reach out to you during a difficult time, people who would mentor you, people who would take time to sit with you and share with
• 11:57
  Orion Samuelson: you, listen to you. I would say to young broadcasters, don't forget what you learned in the early days because someday you'll find that useful in what you're doing.
• 12:10
  Max Armstrong: You know, what we do in the broadcasting business, we we talk into a microphone, it goes down a line, goes up a 700 foot tower, it goes out into the atmosphere, and it's gone. It's gone. It's not like it's building a bridge. It's not like we're making refrigerators. It's not like, you know, there's something to to show at the end of the day.
• 12:28
  You know? It it disappears into the atmosphere, bounces off the ionosphere, goes away. It's gone. So I guess at at the end of the day, we hope that, you know, maybe we've we've touched lives and made a difference.
• 12:42
  Todd Gleason: That was Max Armstrong speaking in a video released this morning by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting in memoriam of my colleague and someone I'd call friend, Orion Samuelson, who passed yesterday. Now life's a bit like radio. It is, as Max said, fleeting. Orion, however, is remembered. We're now joined by Purdue University agricultural economist Joanna Colucci to talk about an article that she's penned for the Center for Commercial Agriculture there and that shows up on the FarmDoc Daily website.
• 13:26
  It's called Brazil Heads for Record Soybean Harvest as Farm Margins approach break even. The second part is as important as the first. Hi, Joanna. Thank you for taking some time with us on this Tuesday. Let's talk about the article just a bit.
• 13:45
  Why is it that the soybean margins in Brazil are shrinking? What has happened over the last few years?
• 13:56
  Joana Colussi: So Brazil is again on track to produce another record soybean harvest supported by larger planted area and higher yields across its main producing regions. But this year, the situation is a little different. Bigger production is no longer being matched by strong profitability. While Brazil soybean harvest may reach a record 6,500,000,000 bushels, the economic conditions facing farmers are much more challenging. So there are some reasons for that.
• 14:33
  I would say that lower export premiums at Brazilian ports, a less favorable exchange rate, and also the soybean trade agreement between China and The US. So all these factors are likely to put even more pressure on producer returns. And this study shows that doing a comparison since 2009 of the cost production, revenues and profitability in Mato Grosso. Mato Grosso is the number one in soybean in Brazil and also number one in corn as well.
• 15:14
  Todd Gleason: There is a key difference that you make note of as it's related to the cost. This has to do with the land values. For instance, in Illinois, something like 80% of the farmland a producer might farm is not owned by them. However, in Brazil, something like 80%, I think, of the farmland is actually owned by those producers. So you fill in that cash rent side with the opportunity cost or what the capital value for the land might be.
• 15:49
  Still, it shows profits, as you mentioned from the 02/2010 season all the way up to and including this 2526 season, though he only put $10 on that this year. That's a really small profit. Can you talk about the thing that really makes a difference for, producers there, in the recent years? Is it the cost of fertilizers?
• 16:14
  Joana Colussi: Yes. When you think about the production costs, if you go back in the past, they have been going up over time, especially since the twenty twenty one-twenty twenty two crop season. Actually, we have seen a similar trend in US agriculture, especially in terms of cost of inputs. In matogross, the costs rose quickly and reached, for example, about $600 per acre in 2023. And it is important to say that the total production costs in this article that we show exclude cash rent.
• 16:58
  Like I said, more than 85% of soybean farmers in Brazil, they operate on land they own. So I would say that a big part of that increase in cost productions in Brazil was linked to the higher fertilizer prices and also our appreciation of the dollar in the Brazilian local currency. Remember that Brazil imports nearly 85% of its fertilizers. So if you put together the difference between the total production cost and the revenues, we can see that the profitability changed quite a bit. In this current crop season, we have seen some projections that the profits in Mato Grosso fall to just $10 per acre.
• 17:52
  This is the lowest level in almost twenty years. But for producers who lease the land, returns are expected to be negative. Also have an impact from the land values in Brazil. We have seen this appreciation as well, but in a different pace than in The US and also more than 85% of the farmers, they don't pay cash rent in Brazil. So it makes a difference in at the end of the day.
• 18:24
  Todd Gleason: And finally, the premise of your article is that all of this, may slow the expansion of soybean acreage or production in Brazil. How much do you suppose?
• 18:37
  Joana Colussi: So we can say that it's unlikely that Brazil will continue expanding at the same pace as we have seen over the past two decades. So historically, a big share of that growth has come from adding more planted areas, especially in the Central West and in newer agricultural frontiers. But with margins getting smaller and smaller, that becomes harder to sustain. So farmers may be less willing to take the risk and they may also have less financial space to invest in bringing new land into production. This year, expansion in the crop, in the acreage in Brazil was around 4% or 3%, but in the past we have seen two digits, sometimes 10%.
• 19:34
  So I would say that we could expect a slowdown for sure starting the next crop season, twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six, and also in the coming years. Of course, we have many factors at play, the Chinese demand, even the local currency in Brazil, but for sure we cannot expect to see the same percentage of increase of land than in Brazil. Maybe 1% or maybe to stay the same than it used to be in the couple of years ago. I cannot say that Brazil will decrease the area, at least in a short term, but we can we can expect that at least they will not continue increase at the same pace than it used to be.
• 20:27
  Todd Gleason: It was good to talk with you, Joanna. Thank you much.
• 20:30
  Joana Colussi: Thank you so much for having me.
• 20:31
  Todd Gleason: That's Joanna Calusi. She is an agricultural economist with Purdue University. You may read more from her on the PharmDoc website. Look for it at pharmdocdaily.illinois.edu. The article is titled Brazil Heads for Record Soybean Harvest as Farm Margins Approach Break Even.
• 20:55
  You're listening to the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media on this Tuesday afternoon. Aren't they? Music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer Tim Gleason. We're now joined by Don Day. He's a day weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
• 21:10
  Hi, Don. Thanks much for being with us. Let's start with the weather we've had. Begin with the winter snowstorm and then turn your attention to the much warmer conditions on their way.
• 21:23
  Don Day: Yeah. I mean, this this last foray into a winter pattern, quite remarkable, really. Several feet of snow in the Upper Peninsula Of Michigan, portions of Wisconsin, and then some of that wraparound snow got all the way into Alabama, parts of Mississippi, and Atlanta, Georgia reporting snow yesterday and some hard freezing temperatures this morning in the Deep South. However, we will see this colder air mass over the next couple of days slide slowly east, but it's gonna be a little bit chilly across the nation's midsection for another day or two. But there's a heat dome building in the Far West.
• 21:59
  We're gonna see record temperatures in the Rockies, the Desert Southwest, and that warmth will start to expand eastward, especially this weekend into early next week, bringing a return of springtime temperatures after this cold spell.
• 22:12
  Todd Gleason: Springtime, almost summer like in some places, I take it.
• 22:16
  Don Day: Oh, yeah. I mean, we're gonna see some hundreds. Places like Arizona, Southern New Mexico, Far West areas of Texas, the deserts of California. This is as as cold as it has been in the Midwest and the Great Lakes. It'll be the opposite on the warm side of things in those western areas.
• 22:34
  Todd Gleason: Hey. Thanks much. We'll talk with you more about it again next week.
• 22:37
  Don Day: We'll see you then.
• 22:38
  Todd Gleason: Dundee is with Day Weather. He is in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Joined us on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like to listen to us at willag.org. Just click and play from willag.org, or search us out by name, the closing market report in your favorite podcast applications.
• 23:05
  I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.