Morning Coffee and Ag Markets
This podcast delivers weekly insights for the agriculture industry, covering everything from farm-level risk management to market volatility and production challenges. Beyond the farm, we discuss key supply chain issues, like Federal Reserve policies, port strikes, and Mississippi River disruptions, affecting everyone from producers to those all along the supply chain. Join host Riley Smith every Monday morning for engaging conversations with agricultural economists and industry experts about the agricultural economy at both the micro and macro level. Each episode also features a market report, offering current and historical futures price trends.
Morning Coffee and Ag Markets
Episode 41 Arkansas Row Crop Update and Fertilizer Market Outlook
In today’s episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets, Riley covers the latest on Arkansas’ row crop planting progress after heavy early April rains. The USDA report shows planting is slightly behind last year, but recent dry weather helped farmers regain ground.
Riley also breaks down fertilizer market trends, with notable price jumps in urea, UAN, DAP, and potash, and explains the difference between wholesale and retail price movements. Plus, a look at crude oil prices near four-year lows and what cheaper fuel could mean for planting season.
Grab your coffee and tune in for a quick snapshot of the AG markets as the 2025 season picks up.
00;00;07;21 - 00;00;37;24
Riley Smith
So good morning. Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets with your host, Riley Smith. And like I said, I am flying solo today. So this episode is going to be pretty short and sweet to the point. So we're just going to dive right in. So following significant rainfall in early April, USDA National National Agricultural Statistics service, Nass released this Crop Progress and Condition report, for the state of Arkansas.
00;00;37;27 - 00;01;11;23
Riley Smith
And now this is based on April 20th. So after we reviewed the report and conducted a, what we call a thorough, thorough damage analysis, like, the episode we released last week, we just wanted to give an update to you guys, our producers, and to the general public on the status row crop planting across state. So as of April 20th, soybean planting in Arkansas stands at 32%, corn is currently 62% plant, and while rice is at 48%, cotton has just begun.
00;01;11;26 - 00;01;37;15
Riley Smith
So they're only about 2% planted peanuts. Same thing. They're only about 3% planted. But to like I said, we're going to do a comparison to to put this in perspective, same time last year shows that April 20th, 2024, soybean planting was at 41%. Corn was slightly ahead at 66%. Rice was at 64%, and cotton, had reached 5%.
00;01;37;15 - 00;02;15;14
Riley Smith
Peanuts was still the same at 3% last year. On the same day. So with that being said, you're talking about a difference, you know, soybeans this year at 32%, last year, 41%, corn, 62% last year this year, and 66%, 66% last year. Rice 64% last year. 48% planted this year. And like I say, cotton, they're, they're at 2% where they were at 5% last year.
00;02;15;17 - 00;02;52;21
Riley Smith
Not going to go into much of the details of why that is. I mean, obviously the, the rain put it put quite a setback. But, with that being said, the prior week we had, after the rainfall, we had a good dry week, real windy week. In talking to a few producer friends of mine, they were able to get in the field a whole lot quicker than they thought they were, having dry conditions that allowed them to, hustle through before the next rain and, kind of caught up to to where they're at right now.
00;02;52;23 - 00;03;23;05
Riley Smith
So with that being said, turning into our input side, mainly going to be talking about fertilizer prices. We'll discuss a little bit on diesel, mainly crude oil futures. We found some interesting prices in that as well. Along with some stats. Statistics? So like I said, we provide the Bloomberg Grain Markets Weekly fertilizer price index.
00;03;23;05 - 00;03;51;01
Riley Smith
And if you subscribe to our newsletter, you'll see that these figures that I'm talking about, looking at urea, uan or or ammonium nitrate, DAP and potash, so reflecting, we, looked at the wholesale pricing for Bloomberg, observes from January 5th to April 22nd. So within that time frame, Urea rose by $85 per ton. Ammonium nitrate increased by $85 a ton as well.
00;03;51;01 - 00;04;20;03
Riley Smith
That rose $48 per ton, and potash climbed up by $40 per ton, compared to during the same period in 2024 from January 1st or January 5th. Excuse me, 2024 to April 22nd, 2024, urea increased by $22 per ton. UAE and UAN rose by $33 per ton, DAP jumped by $65 per ton and potash decreased by $27 per ton.
00;04;20;05 - 00;04;42;20
Riley Smith
So you could almost say it doubled or tripled in the amount of time in the same amount of time as it did, last year. So with that being said, we wanted to though to look at a comparison to that. Now, given that Bloomberg Green Markets are based on that wholesale power, on the wholesale price, we wanted to take a look.
00;04;42;20 - 00;05;11;03
Riley Smith
I kind of wanted to go back and dig into our state level pricing and what I gathered from the local co-ops of the state to see if they had fluctuated as much or is equal to, these wholesale prices. So that being said, looking at the state level retail pricing, the following changes, went back and January 5th to April 18th because that's my price dates that I have.
00;05;11;05 - 00;05;48;26
Riley Smith
And, and looked at that trend line. So urea increased by $68.33 per ton. And looking back over the Bloomberg, they rose up by $85. So that's, you know, relatively close So we're talking about $22, $23 or something like that. So you can rose by $15 per ton, DAP increased by $22.25 per ton. And potash went up to $37, went up by 37, $36.75 per ton.
00;05;48;29 - 00;06;23;15
Riley Smith
So, like I said, it's important to note that green markets learn Bloomberg Green Markets, reports wholesale prices typically associated with rail delivery, whereas UADA’s reflect retail costs, including transportation from river to local elevators or co-ops. So with that being said, I think that the state level retail pricing kind of captures the the idea of the increased cost and transportation of these fertilizers or these inputs more so than it does actual fertilizer itself.
00;06;23;17 - 00;06;45;10
Riley Smith
So looking at Bloomberg gives you an idea of what the increased cost of fertilizer is as a whole. And then looking at the state level, shows you just how much that increases the, you know, when you have an increase in fertilizer price, it shows you the, difference in that increase of transportation costs that are associated with that.
00;06;45;12 - 00;07;20;26
Riley Smith
So we thought that was something that was, very, very influential. I would say, and something that the producers, and our growers, and stakeholders at the state would find very interesting. And it may even help you, want to go read more on it or study it a little bit more. And, lastly went on, we thought it was worth mentioning that, WTI, which is the New York MEX, WTI crude oil futures.
00;07;20;28 - 00;07;41;19
Riley Smith
So the is trading near four year near a four year low. What that means is, is that the graph below, in our chart that I'm looking at right now, it shows a five year weekly chart of the WTI crude oil futures. Now what's that got to do with anything. Well the crude oil futures is usually what dictates are diesel prices.
00;07;41;22 - 00;08;10;06
Riley Smith
So now note in the first week of April WTI did trade as low as $55.12 per barrel. The lowest level since February of 2021. And crude has since recovered above $60 and is generally trading in the range of 6150 to 6490 this week. This could potentially signal some relief ahead and fuel costs offering a positive outlook for producers as the planting season continues.
00;08;10;09 - 00;08;40;03
Riley Smith
So we thought that was something that we, really wanted to know, that there may be relief on the horizon this way. Talk is talk about one of the, you know, one of the inputs that goes into farming that that everybody uses. But furthermore, that's that's about all I've got, on the, on the market outlook on the, input market, as well as the row crop update, where our progress planting is, right as, as of this time.
00;08;40;05 - 00;09;07;04
Riley Smith
So we will keep you up to date with, but we, kind of change gears. We haven't done this before, but thought it'd be interesting. And, all of all the guys in the office have been extremely busy dealing with the damage analysis, and, so, volunteered myself to, go on this one alone. So. But with that being said, instead of pausing or anything, I'm just going to go right into my market report for you guys for this week.
00;09;07;04 - 00;09;32;23
Riley Smith
We did a little change on the market report as well. So so we're, you know, our future contracts are looking at the following future, harvest months is what I call them. But September 25th, corn, September 25th rice, November 25th, soybeans. And then July stays at the same. July 25th wheat. And December 25th cotton. So we're no longer looking at May futures.
00;09;32;25 - 00;10;00;03
Riley Smith
So, what that being said September 25th corn current price is at $4.46 per bushel. Month agos prices at $4.45 per bushel. That's up $0.01 a year agos prices at $4.58 per bushel. That's down $0.12. September 25 Rice Current price is at $13.39 per cwt. Month agos price is at $13.63 per cwt. That's down $0.24 and a year
00;10;00;04 - 00;10;29;12
Riley Smith
agos price is at $15.04 per cwt. That's down $1.65. November 25 Soybeans current prices at $10.28 per bushel, a month agos price is at $10.07 per bushel. That's up $0.21 and a year agos price is $11.75 per bushel. That's down to $1.47. July 25 wheat current price is at $5.44 per bushel. Month agos price is at $5.65 per bushel.
00;10;29;12 - 00;10;57;09
Riley Smith
That's down $0.21 in a year agos price was at $6.13 per bushel. That's down $0.69 till, December 25 Cotton current price is at $0.70 per pound, a month agos price is at $0.69 per pound. That's up $0.01 year agos prices at $0.78 per pound. That's down $0.08 in your weekly US average. Peanuts current price is at $502 per ton.
00;10;57;11 - 00;11;26;08
Riley Smith
Month agos price is at $514 per ton. That's down $12 and a year agos price is at $556 per ton. That's down $54. So that's your commodity futures this week. Your input prices this week stay the same as the previous week. Urea 548.33 per ton ammonium nitrate, $480 per ton, ammonium sulfate, $541.45 per ton DAP is $762.25 per ton triple
00;11;26;08 - 00;11;57;01
Riley Smith
Super phosphate $685.67 per ton. Potash is $448.75 per ton. AG lime 50 dollars per ton and pellet lime is $237.65 per ton. Your diesel prices this week. Off road diesels $2.47 per gallon. Highway diesel is $3.25 per gallon and your Mississippi River level and Memphis, Tennessee this week. Current levels at 33.81ft and a year ago was an 19.77ft.
00;11;57;04 - 00;12;22;29
Riley Smith
Want to thank y'all again for tuning in to another episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you enjoyed your morning coffee as you tuned in to this episode. So until next time, we'll catch you on a flip flop, bye bye now.