Good Morning,
The corn market is trying to rebound from yesterday’s profit taking with nearby futures up 5 and deferred up 3-4.
USDA Ag Sec Perdue announced the agency is authorized up to $12 billion in programs to assist US farmers disrupted by tariffs. The program is expected to begin around Labor Day; USDA stresses this is a short-term program until trade deal can be made. USDA will use 3 programs to assist farmers; 1) Market Facilitation Program, authorized under the CCC and administered by FSA, will provide payments incrementally to producers of soybeans, sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy, and hogs; this is direct payment to producer, after they’ve sign-up with local FSA county office. 2) Food Purchase and Distribution Program through Agricultural Marketing Service to purchase unexpected surplus of affected commodities such as fruits, nuts, rice, legumes, beef, pork and milk for distribution to food banks and nutritional programs. 3) Trade Promotion Program administered by Foreign Agriculture Service to assist in developing new export markets for farm products. Press conference revealed that soybeans would be largest recipient of program $. Unfortunately the financial break-down, the duration, & how each program is administered is not available yet. This is not a sustainable long term solution, but will buy producers time as the US and China try to work out their differences.
The EU and GFS models are in fair agreement over the 10-day forecast as they call for a broad ridge/trough pattern to continue across N. America into the beginning of August. The weather pattern is expected to bring cooler temperatures and below normal rainfall. Areas of acute dryness continue to pop up throughout the Corn Belt that will be a drag on corn and bean yields. The latest Vegetative Health Index maps showed marked improvement as they now point to yield potential closer to 176 to 178 bushels per acre as a nationwide average. With each passing day now it looks as though the 2018 corn crop will be a good, but not a great and with what is going on with wheat the corn will surely follow.
Producers with old crop corn and soybeans to move should take advantage of this short rally to make sales. The announcement has done nothing to change the supply and demand picture for the time being and if/when it does, it will only affect new crop.
Have a Safe Day!
Garry Gard
920-348-6844
ggard@didionmilling.com