corn
Ethanol makers go upmarket, from fuel for cars to drinks for drivers
The federal mandate to mix corn ethanol into gasoline has plateaued at 15 billion gallons a year, so ethanol distillers are looking for other markets and throttling back on production, says Reuters. Three companies — ethanol industry leader Archer-Daniels-Midland, Green Plains Inc. and Pacific Ethanol — are turning to industrial and beverage alcohol production, an avenue open to them because ethanol is grain alcohol.
For second time in a month, China approves U.S. GMO crop for import
China, the top customer for U.S. farm exports, is delivering on a promise to speed up review of import applications, part of the two nations' 100-day timetable for resolving trade issues. Its Agriculture Ministry approved import of an insect-resistant GMO corn strain by Syngenta and a glyphosate-tolerant GMO corn variety by Monsanto, the second time in a month that U.S. biotech strains have been cleared for import, said Reuters.
Japan edges Mexico for No. 1 spot as U.S corn buyer
With the Trump administration pursuing a re-negotiation of NAFTA, Mexico is scaling back its purchases of U.S. corn, which has allowed Japan to become the top market for U.S. corn exports, said Bloomberg. Mexico has looked into corn imports from South America after President Trump made Mexico his chief NAFTA target and drove down the value of the peso.
EPA will consider permanent reduction in mandate for advanced biofuels
Two months behind schedule, the EPA has proposed the targets for renewable fuel use in 2018 — corn-based ethanol in its usual place as the primary biofuel, at 15 billion gallons, and so-called advanced biofuels at 4.24 billion gallons. The agency said it will begin the technical analysis that could lead to a permanently lower mandate for advanced biofuels, which are being produced in far smaller quantities than envisioned in a 2007 law.
Farmworkers sue Monsanto in first-of-its-kind labor case
Two migrant farmworkers have filed a federal class action lawsuit against Monsanto, alleging that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Agricultural Workers Protection Act while the workers were employed in Monsanto’s GMO seed corn fields.
Is a slowdown in U.S. soy, corn and poultry sales to Mexico a signal of the future?
"Faltering trust between trading partners on both sides of the border" may be slowing U.S. farm export to Mexico as the nations prepare to renegotiate NAFTA , says Farm Futures. It says that U.S. exports of corn, soybeans and chicken meat to Mexico declined during the first four months of this year, a period when the new Trump administration floated the idea of a border tax and when U.S.-Mexico relations soured.
Global consortium forms with goal of speeding up crop breeding
The congressionally created Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) will put $10 million into a new global consortium whose goal is to accelerate crop breeding to meet the rising world demand for food, the eight-member consortium said in a kick-off announcement. FFAR said its contribution "is expected to leverage significant investment from partners."
Farmers win $217.7 million in GMO case; Syngenta will appeal
In the first of several class-action lawsuits pending against Syngenta, a federal-court jury awarded $217.7 million to farmers who blamed the seed company for a collapse in corn prices when China rejected cargoes of corn that included the genetically modified Syngenta strain.
Northern Plains may feel effects all year from scant spring rains
Spring and early summer are the wet season for the northern Plains, a cattle, wheat, and corn-growing region, so the dry start to this year’s growing season could have a lasting impact, says the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor.
Iowa farmland values begin to inch upward
After falling by 10 percent since 2013, farmland values in Iowa, the No. 1 corn state in the nation, are marginally higher, with the recovery expected to continue into the future, says Successful Farming. "We think the bleeding has stopped," said Iowa State University economist Wendong Zhang at ISU's annual soil management and land value conference.
‘Organic’ corn, soybean imports called fraudulent
Millions of pounds of corn and soybeans imported to the United States in the past year were labeled “organic” but actually did not meet the requirements of the USDA label, according to The Washington Post.
U.S. wheat output to plunge 21 percent; price rises for first time in four years
Along with corn and soybeans, U.S. wheat prices reached a record high in 2013, just before the collapse of the commodity boom. The USDA projects that this year's wheat crop will end the four-year decline in prices, partly because the harvest will be nearly one-half billion bushels smaller than a year ago.
Perdue proves his row-crop credentials
The job went to Sonny Perdue of Georgia, although Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley loudly advocated for a northerner to be agriculture secretary under President Trump. Grassley told a crowd of Iowans that his doubts were erased went he met Perdue, who repeated for the crowd his bona fides in the three major U.S. crops, grown predominantly in the Midwest and Plains.
Global GMO plantings rose in 2016
The amount of GMO crops grown worldwide in 2016 was up from the year before. Increased GMO plantings in Brazil and the United States accounted for most of the rise.
Blessed by good weather, Brazil harvests record corn and soybean crops
Record world corn production forecast despite U.S. retreat
A surge in corn production in Brazil and Argentina will power the world to a record harvest in 2017/18, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in forecasting bin-busting output of cereal crops in the upcoming season. "Combined with prospects of relatively weak growth in utilization, another large output is set to keep world cereal stocks at near-record level."
Draft points to market access as key Trump goal in NAFTA renegotiation
Big ag importer, China slows its approval of GMO crops for entry
U.S. officials repeatedly have prodded China for a faster and more open system for deciding whether to approve the import of new genetically engineered strains of crop. A U.S. business group says China is headed in the opposite direction by taking longer to approve a smaller number of GMO varieties — only one in 2016, reports Reuters.