Crowley talks livestock, crop prices

You’ve likely noticed very little meat on store shelves by now. This is due to processors not processing which has been causing all kinds of issues in agriculture as of late.

“If you don’t keep those animals flowing, you are going to have situations where people are going to be out of food and that’s never good,” Merrill Crowley with First Choice Commodities told The Central Illinois Farm Network on Thursday.

Producers are cutting back on feed so animal gains are minimal. An excellent export sale of hogs to China was recently observed which really doesn’t make much sense at a time we are having to euthanize livestock.

“We really need to be utilizing this meat somehow and some way,” added Crowley.

The sooner we get processors back, the better it will be for farmers all around, according to Crowley.

Weekly market recap:

This week didn’t start off well for the markets but we have seen some good moves the past couple of days. There was a double bottom in July corn for a week and it was a two day affair for December corn. Many are wondering why we are seeing a rally. Crowley feels we are oversold and the rally is testing a down trend line in corn.

Gasoline demand was up two weeks in a row which is good news and there were slower declines in the ethanol crush compared to before. Soybeans have also seen support from purchase rumors.

“We have rumors of China being in the market actually buying,” explained Crowley. “That’s one of the reasons pushing the market higher.”

Month’s end is often a time when there are funny moves in the market. Crowley hopes a low is in as he does not see anything which could push things much lower.