soybeans

Although the world will harvest the third-largest grain crop ever in 2017/18 — only 4 percent smaller than the record set last season — the global grain inventory will decline for the first time in five years, forecasts the International Grains Council.

A total eclipse of the sun will plunge many parts of the Great Plains and Midwest into darkness on Monday, August 21, and researchers are excitedly preparing to study the event’s impact on farm crops and animals. During the eclipse, which will occur in the middle of the day, the sun will disappear for about two and a half minutes and the temperature will drop some 10 degrees.

Although corn and soybean prices are lower than a year ago, farmland values in the Midwest are up by 1 percent compared to this point a year ago, the first year-over-year gain in three years, said the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. But land values fell in the central Plains, according to ag bankers surveyed by the Kansas City Fed.

In its first estimate of the fall harvest, the USDA said farmers will harvest a record soybean crop for the fourth consecutive year, fattening a large global stockpile. The government forecast of the corn crop also was larger than expected, with USDA saying this year's crop would sell for the lowest price per bushel in 11 years because of ample supplies.

After shutting down row-crop use of dicamba for the rest of this growing season, Arkansas has appointed a 21-member task force to look for a long-term solution to the nearly 900 complaints about the herbicide this year. "The task force will attempt to reach consensus on a set of recommendations for the use of dicamba products n Arkansas as quickly as possible in order to provide certainty for the 2018 growing season," said the state Agriculture Department.

Minnesota ruled that biofuels will need to contain a mix of 20 percent soybeans or other renewable fuel sources, cutting the amount of emissions while boosting demand for soybeans, said MPR News. "This is an opportunity to add value to farmers' products," state agriculture commissioner Dave Frederickson said last Thursday, according to the report. "Given the fact that the first B10 mandate actually added about 63 cents per bushel, on every bushel sold, we're hoping to double that as we move into a B20 mandate."

The "overwhelming majority of farmers are experiencing tremendous success" with the new, less-volatile formulation of the weedkiller dicamba, says Monsanto's chief technology officer Robb Fraley in an open letter to farmers, inviting them to call with complaints of damage from the herbicide.

A University of Missouri weed specialist says the weedkiller dicamba has damaged more than 2.5 million acres of cropland this year, mostly in the Midwest and South, reports Harvest Public Media. The researcher, Kevin Bradley, says, “I don’t know that we’ve ever in our agricultural history seen one active ingredient do so much damage across one nation like that.”

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.

With more than 500 complaints of weedkiller misuse from Arkansas farmers, Gov. Asa Hutchinson approved an 120-day ban on use of the herbicide dicamba on row crops and forwarded the emergency step to the state's Legislative Council for a final decision. Hutchinson also assented to increasing the fine for egregious misuse of herbicides to a maximum of $25,000 and sent it to the council as well.

Due to a procedural error on Tuesday, the Arkansas state plant board will re-vote on Friday on whether to temporarily ban use of the weedkiller dicamba, suspected of drifting out of cotton and soybean fields to damage neighboring crops, reported DTN. Some 167 complaints alleging misuse of the herbicide, mostly along the eastern edge of Arkansas, were filed with the state board as of midday Wednesday.

Sharply higher sales of soybean, cotton, and livestock products are leading a rebound in U.S. farm exports this year, said the USDA. With four months left in the fiscal year, it estimated exports at $137 billion, up nearly 6 percent from 2016 and reversing two years of declining sales.

Record-low planting of winter wheat and recent reports on harvests and yields “indicate a sharp decline in winter wheat production” in 2017/18, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. The May Wheat Report projected a 25 percent fall in yields of U.S. winter wheat.

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.

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.

U.S. corn exports are climbing for the third year in a row and will be the fourth largest on record this trade year, thanks to the mammoth crop now being harvested and falling market prices, said the Agriculture Department on Thursday. The 15.2 billion-bushel crop would be just a hair smaller than the record set last year.