During most weeks, the AgEconMT crew reads a lot of news, interacts with lots of people, and learns a lot. While we’re not able to report on and provide analyses on all of those things, we want to share at least a few items that we found to be particularly interesting and useful for the northern Great Plains agricultural sector during the past week.
Agricultural producers’ economic sentiment soars post-election (Purdue University): Producer sentiment about the agricultural economy soared on the heels of November’s presidential election, according to the December Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer report released Tuesday (Jan. 10).
Wheat acreage outlook is grim (Prairie Business Magazine): “We’ve seen a perfect storm of ideal production for four straight years,” said Erica Olson, marketing specialist with the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Though wheat consumption is at a record high and growing, “We do have a surplus of wheat” — and that’s dampening the outlook for farmers who grow it.
Federal Benefits for Livestock and Specialty Crop Producers (Choices Magazine): Largely due to their own policy choices over time, livestock and specialty producers do not benefit from farm safety net programs like producers of field crops, which are provided under the Commodity Title of farm bills. Instead, the major forms of current support for these producers provided through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are discussed in this article, including efforts to expand both domestic and international demand, funding to ensure the wholesomeness of their products and environmental sustainability of their operations, and disaster assistance.
US winter wheat area hits lowest since 1909, sending prices higher (AgriMoney): Wheat futures touched multi-months highs after the US revealed that its winter sowings of the grain had slumped to the lowest in 108 years, while soybean prices gained on a lower-than-expected stocks estimate.
Notice anything we’ve missed and that could be interesting to others like you? Let us know and we’ll add it!
(Photo by NS Newsflash is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
