View from the Cab: Trade questions remain

By Kent Casson

After a nice rally in soybeans in recent weeks, we have seen some choppy trading.

The soybean market has been a bit weaker as China continues to look at soybeans from Brazil as that country is priced cheaper than we are currently – especially when you add in a 13 percent tariff.

“The market is still waiting for confirmation if China is going to buy U.S. soybeans,” Aaron Curtis of MIDCO told me last week.

Some business was accomplished during the recent trade meeting but things have been fairly quiet since.

Corn has been stuck in about an eight-cent trading range.

“We don’t know if USDA will have enough data to change a lot on the demand side,” adds Curtis.

The biggest thing now is examining production, exports, crush and feed demand. As of this writing, we are anxiously awaiting the November USDA report to be released and the federal government to be reopened following a weeks-long shutdown.

We also have to worry about a good South American growing season on the horizon as that could greatly impact our crop prices. Curtis says the weather looks good down there and here at home, we just have a little bit of corn harvest left in the U.S. before this crop is all in the bin.

You can go ahead and blame me for the recent soybean market rally as I sold all of my soybeans across the scale at the elevator – then prices took off before they eased back here recently.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for corn and soybean prices moving into the next year. Many farmers are having a tough time making ends meet and budgets aren’t penciling out to raise either crop. Something must happen or it could be another long year ahead of us in farm country.

Following an arctic blast early last week, our area was blessed with warmer-than-normal temperatures over the weekend. What a pleasant surprise after getting the winter coats out! This is good because I still need more time to chop up a few leaves and blow them out of the yard one more time.

At least the furnace got a bit of a workout to know everything is running properly.

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