2015

Posted 9 years 87 days ago by

Feeder cattle prices were $3 to $10 higher with instances of $7 lower; futures higher.

Fed cattle cash trade was inactive on Wednesday; formula trades lower; futures higher.

Cotton cash prices steady; futures lower.

soybeans lower.

Crude oil higher; natural gas higher.

Stock markets higher.

Texas feeder cattle auctions quoted prices $3 to $10 higher with instances of $7 lower. Feeder cattle futures closed $1.80 higher at $202.55 per hundredweight (cwt). The Texas fed cattle cash trade was inactive yesterday. Estimated cattle harvest through Wednesday totaled 439,000 head, up 4,000 from last week and up 82,000 from a year ago. Year-to-date harvest is up 23%. Fed cattle futures were $0.37 higher than the previous day’s prices closing at $141.60 per cwt.

Cotton cash prices were steady yesterday, closing at 59.38 cents per pound. Cotton futures prices lost 0.06 cents, settling at 63.12 cents per pound.

Soybean futures prices closed $0.04 lower, settling at $8.80 per bushel.

Wheat futures prices closed $0.06 lower to settle at $4.42 per bushel.

This week’s U.S. Drought Monitor for Texas showed worsening drought conditions for the state, with about 41.94% of Texas in some stage of drought intensity, up 1.28 percentage points from last week. Additionally, 9.99% of the state remains in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought, up 3.62 percentage points from three months ago. On the national level, drought conditions got slightly worse, with 45.79% of the U.S. experiencing abnormal dryness or some degree of drought, up 0.83 percentage points from last week.

Stock markets closed slightly higher yesterday, as investors are waiting for U.S. employment data to be released. Crude oil prices gained $0.50 to close at $46.75 per barrel, after the President of the European Central Bank announced that the central bank was ready to expand its stimulus program.

Daily Market Summary Data for 9/03/2015

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Agri-Pulse:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3, 2015 - Keeping up with the growing demand for non-GMO and organic products is proving to be a challenge. The Agriculture Department is betting that providing farmers with information on market prices will help.

USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service this week launched its first weekly report on prices for non-GMO corn and soybeans. According to the report, non-GMO feed corn is selling for significantly more than the conventional, genetically engineered versions. The report had no prices for soybeans or for food-grade corn. The reports could increase the market for non-GMO grain and in turn encourage farmers to transition to organic.

Many farmers have been reluctant to seek organic certification because they can't market their products during the three-year transition period when they have to follow USDA's organic standards, which among other things bar the use of biotech seed.

Companies “have come to us and said that one of the impediments to their growth … is getting producers to switch over, because there's not a lot of reliable information in terms of the prices being paid,” said Craig Morris, deputy administrator of AMS' livestock, poultry and seed program.

In May, food maker SunOpta Inc. became the first food manufacturing facility in the United States to be approved for a process verified program for non-GMO products.

Meanwhile, Congress is debating legislation that would preempt state labeling laws for biotech crops and set up a USDA-run program for regulating non-GMO labeling.

The non-GMO reports are the latest in a growing list of specialty market reports that USDA is compiling, with more to come.

Reports on grass-finished beef started in 2013, and in the next six months the agency will be rolling out reports on pasture-raised pork, free-range chicken, farm-raised catfish and commodities grown by American Indian tribes.

USDA also is posting reports on prices at many farmers markets. The latest report from Iowa, for example, puts the average price of rhubarb at $2 a bunch, while heirloom tomatoes are going for $3 a pound and ears of sweet corn are fetching $5 to $7 a dozen.

The challenge for the department is getting enough entities to participate to make the data in the reports meaningful.

Lynn Clarkson, a major trader in non-GMO grains, says the corn prices in the initial USDA report are way out of line with actual market prices. According to the report, the average price of non-GMO corn is $4.06 a bushel. By comparison, September corn futures were trading for under $3.50 in Chicago on Thursday.

Clarkson, president of Illinois-based Clarkson Grain, said the current premium for non-GMO corn was only about 20 cents a bushel, suggesting that the entities reporting to USDA might have needed the corn quickly and had to overpay for it to avoid losing a customer.

“The price indicated for non-GMO yellow feed corn bears no reasonable relation to my market knowledge and experience,” he said.

Clarkson said that there is plenty of non-GMO grain on the market but that much of it isn't getting any premium because farmers are simply selling it into the conventional market and missing out on the extra profit.

For USDA, it's a chicken-and-egg problem. Starting the reports, even with a small number of entities reporting, encourages others to start participating, Morris said.

“When you put a report out, and you have a couple of market participants, others start saying, ‘Hey, we want our reports in there as well,'” he said.

The initial AMS report said, “Demand is very light with inactive market activity. Harvest is a few weeks away and last year's crop is hard to move with new crop just around the corner.”

AMS is initially trying to obtain data for future delivery contract prices and spot market cash prices paid to producers. The agency eventually hopes to add prices for short-term and long-term contracts and farm-gate prices. An agency spokesman wouldn't disclose the number of entities participating in the report, citing confidentiality rules.