Mother Nature has not been very pleasant this spring to the farmers. Local farmer and American Soybean Association Chairman, Ron Moore, shares what he has been hearing on a state and national level on planting:
“The latest on the state of Illinois I have been hearing, is we are behind 70% from what we usually are in a normal planting season, at least on corn. Most likely further back behind on soybeans. Nationwide I believe we are 25% on corn, which is considerably lower. Normally we should be in the mid-50s to 60% complete on corn at this point,” Moore reports.
Moore states the last planting season that was this late was back in 2003.
Last week with the USMCA and NAFTA 2.0 with Canada and Mexico, President Trump announced he would be removing the tariffs on steel and aluminum. Moore says this is a big positive:
“All three governments and officials said they would not pass the new agreement with those tariffs in place. So that opens the door for getting something done here in the United States and Canada and Mexico trough their legislative process,” shares Moore.
Agriculture has been treated well through the USMCA and has not faced any negative impacts, which will continue to help make trading with Canada and Mexico and very good deal.
The weather and trade are big factors that can affect yield markets. Moore states that volatility is extremely high:
“Last week we had soybean markets go up 40 cents then they dropped 18 cents. I think Mother Nature is going to take care of our surplus as we talk about this late spring,” Moore reports.
The potential for lower yields is greater than the potential for higher to average yields.
The American Soybean Association held a policy session back in February and supported the extension of the Market Facilitation Program that farmers received last fall. Seeing that the trade issue would not be resolved quickly, Moore, shares the details of their policy discussion:
“Our policy was that we encouraged the extension of the Market Facilitation Program because this trade issue does not appear to be resolved soon. This past week, you are hearing some administration officials saying that they are looking at that. Numbers are hard to pin down, but 15 to 20 billion dollars, similar program to last year, but we do not know any details yet. I think that is encouraging that we have been talking about this at the American Soybean Association and the administration has responded to our expressing our concerns about how damaging these trade issues are to farmers in the Midwest,” states Moore.
Administration officials should be announcing in the coming weeks if the Market Facilitation Program will be extended through this growing season.
