Grain Markets and Other Stuff
Joe Vaclavik and Mackenzie Johnston discuss the grain markets, the business of farming, news related to agriculture, and a variety of other topics.
Grain Markets and Other Stuff
Trump to Host Farmers for Big Party - Is He Losing Rural Support??
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🌽 White House Biofuels Event & RVO Decision
President Trump is hosting a major ag event next week with farmers and biofuel producers 🇺🇸
Comes just ahead of the 2026–2027 blending mandate decision
Potential increase in mandates = stronger demand for ethanol & biodiesel
⚠️ Refiners pushing back, warning of higher fuel prices
Timing matters with Middle East conflict already pressuring energy markets
💸 Rising Farm Costs Becoming Political
War-driven input inflation is hitting farmers hard 🚜
Fertilizer + fuel costs surging right before planting
Margins already tight due to weak grain prices
Could impact rural sentiment ahead of midterms 🗳️
Higher farm costs = potential food inflation pressure 🍔
🌾 Wheat Market Update
Wheat futures slipped Tuesday 📉
Chicago wheat ~ $5.90, KC wheat ~ $6.07
Cold temps + ongoing dryness in the Plains
Forecast: hot + dry → then cooldown
Russia still undercutting U.S. on price 🌍
🌍 Trump Delays China Trip
Trade tensions stay in focus 🇺🇸🇨🇳
Visit pushed back 5–6 weeks
Trump ties trip to China helping reopen Hormuz
Treasury says delay is logistical
⏳ Delays progress on ag trade talks (soybeans!)
Meanwhile:
Strait of Hormuz effectively closed 🚢
Iranian attacks continue across the region
Energy markets remain on edge
🇧🇷 Brazil Soybean Export Problems
Brazil facing fresh export disruptions 🚫
China tightening inspection standards
Issues: insects, damage, treated beans
Cargill paused some shipments
Local soybean bids have collapsed in some areas
Officials heading to China to try and fix it 🤝
👉 This could shift demand back toward the U.S. if it drags on
Farmer Party
SPEAKER_01Morning, guys. It's Wednesday, March 18th, 5 23 a.m. Central Time. Grain markets are mixed this morning. Pretty quiet overnight trade. May corn futures down one at 453. May soybeans down four and three quarters at 11.52 and a quarter. May Chicago wheat up one at 590 and three-quarters. May Kansas City wheat down one at 605 and three-quarters. May Spring wheat up four and three quarters at 629. Mackenzie, there's going to be a big party for farmers at the White House next week. Why don't we start there?
SPEAKER_00There sure is. Trump has invited farmers and biofuel producers to a White House agricultural event next week. The invitation comes as the administration is preparing to finalize 2026 and 2027 biofuel blending quotas by the end of the month. It's unclear if the event will coincide with the announcement of the new quotas, which would increase blending mandates compared to current levels. Oil refiners are, of course, pushing back, warning that higher blending requirements could raise fuel prices. This comes at a time when the White House is already concerned about potential price spikes tied to the conflict in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01I'm assuming, Mackenzie, that you received your invite to the party.
SPEAKER_00I did just yesterday afternoon.
SPEAKER_01And you'll be going?
SPEAKER_00Most definitely. Yeah, I'm gonna have to take off work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, awesome. Um, did you act you didn't actually receive an invite, did you?
SPEAKER_00No, I didn't. No, I'd be looking at it.
Trump Losing Rural Support?
SPEAKER_01You should receive you should receive an invite. You're you're influential. Um, in any case, the invitation, which I did not receive either. I'm not a farmer, though. Uh, it said this later this month, following National Agriculture Week, President Trump plans to host hundreds of farmers and ranchers from around the country on the South Lawn to shine a spotlight on the men and women growing our food, fiber, and fuel. This could very well um align with an RVO announcement, and the RVO numbers have been leaked a hundred times or more. And um, I think I don't know that it's going to be a surprise to the market or a big shock when they are ultimately released. Trump is in kind of a tough spot, I'll say, with regard to farmers and their sentiment. And that kind of leads us to our next story, I think.
SPEAKER_00Right. The war-driven uh rise in farm input costs is threatening Trump's support in rural America. The conflict has triggered sharp increases in fertilizer and fuel prices, leaving some farmers concerned about the affordability and availability of key inputs just ahead of planting season. If these financial struggles persist, voter enthusiasm in rural areas could soften, potentially influencing the outcome of this year's midterm elections. Also, higher input costs for farmers could push food costs higher, adding to the financial strain many households are already feeling and potentially influencing how voters feel about the economy.
Wheat and Southern Plains Weather
SPEAKER_01So, with regard to farmers, you've got a couple of big things that that Trump has has Trump has done, has caused that have uh it's changed sentiment. So the first one, more recently, most recently, would be the fertilizer price spike. Uh, we've had these urea charts and how uh nitrogen products in particular are just through the roof. And and it's you know, we've we've seen the markets perk up a little bit, but a lot of that's been offset by higher input costs. Uh the rise in diesel prices in particular is another problem. Diesel prices, uh retail national average up 38% versus last month at 507 as of yesterday. The month ago average was 367. Gas prices up 32% since last month. Diesel is it's an input for farmers, not as big as the fertilizer input for most operations. And then um the third one, and maybe the biggest one for a lot of the row crop guys, is uh to backtrack a little bit, the whole tariff situation and how soybean export sales to China are drastically reduced versus prior years because of the tariffs and because of the timing of the tariffs. So yeah, Trump has has uh got himself into a little bit of trouble here with regard to his support base, which uh farmers are certainly a part of that support base. And we've seen that made evident. I'm not just saying that, we've seen it made evident in the Purdue Ag Barometer uh survey numbers, which they're not my favorite numbers. Like I see some flaws in them sometimes, but this one tracks for me. And the question, uh, and this was from last month, would you say that things in the U.S. today are generally headed in the right direction or on the wrong track? In the right direction. That number was 75% in December. It declined to 62% in January and declined again to 59% in February. So support could be waning just um a little bit. I mean, Trump still certainly I think has the majority of the of the farm vote. But people are, you know, scratching their heads a little bit about some of these policy decisions, whether it's Iran or tariffs or whatever, because they've certainly caused uh problems for uh some of Trump's base here.
SPEAKER_00Wheat futures moved lower yesterday as the May 26th, May 26th Chicago wheat contract fell nearly eight cents to settle near 590 per bushel, and the May Kansas City wheat contract lost nearly 10 cents to close near 607 per bushel. The pullback was driven by colder temperatures across the U.S. plains earlier this week, along with ongoing dry conditions. Additional pressure came from competitively priced Russian supplies.
SPEAKER_01Let's take a look at some weather for the U.S. Southern Plains and HRW wheat areas in particular. There is no rain in the forecast at all for uh most of Kansas, eastern Colorado, southern Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma panhandle area. And this is the next 15 days. And the Euro, the GFS, they both look pretty similar. Very, very little rain, perhaps no rain for most of these areas. You've got heat coming in uh this weekend. It's gonna be in the upper 80s, maybe even 90s uh this weekend, Friday, Saturday. It's gonna be hot. And then after that, you're back to a freeze uh by next weekend, back into the 20s by Friday, the 27th. The market is not, I mean, I would argue that Kansas City wheat futures are holding together fairly well, all things considered. You've got the big drag of the soybean sell-off, but it's holding together pretty well. And I know the wheat crop's got nine lives, and and it can certainly uh survive a number of things, but this weather setup is is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination. Uh, to look at a December corn chart very quickly, we've backed off, of course. Maybe you've got some support uh at the place of that breakout above the November high, which was 473. I'd like to say that that's a support area. Brian Split's gonna do some charts in our uh premium video today, and uh he'll kind of dig a little bit deeper into this, certainly. November soybeans don't look great. I guess it was good that we were able to recover yesterday to some degree. And I'd love to see a trade and close back above that 430, or I'm sorry, 1131 and a half level today, which was your uh peak back in November. So we've corrected and we've moved lower in these markets uh this week, but it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily look like the rallies are over to me. This looks like uh perhaps a necessary correction, at least for the time being.
SPEAKER_00If you guys have not checked out our premium content, you sure need to do so. Joe, can you tell our viewers about yesterday's premium video?
Trump Delays China Meeting
SPEAKER_01Ryan Moe was uh on with me yesterday, and Ryan does commercial business for uh stone. He does elevator business, stuff like that. So he's kind of on the opposite side of the spectrum. I work with farmers, Ryan works with uh grain buyers primarily, and he talked uh a lot about the storage crunch, especially in the Western Corn Belt. Um, is the infrastructure really there for these massive crops that we've been putting out? And the much more interesting piece was was later in the video when we got into the new crop accumulator situation. And Ryan called it scary and explained why it's scary. And if you guys don't understand the dynamics of what's going on with regard to new crop corn marketing and how it's being done and uh to the degree that these are that these accumulators are being done, you need to watch this video. It's super interesting. And um, I think it provides some clues perhaps as to how farm marketing of new crop corn could play out this year under different scenarios. If you guys want to see the premium stuff, go to standardgrain.com. You can sign up this morning. This is a$50 per month subscription. You can cancel it anytime. There's no other fee, no other obligation, nobody to try to sell you anything else. Um, on the podcast here and on the YouTube channel, the free stuff, we do a news show in the premium stuff. It's it's geared toward decision makers. If you're the decision maker in your farm operation, if you do the marketing, if you do the crop insurance, if you make the business decisions, financing, all that stuff, this is for you. Uh give that deal a shot this morning, guys.
SPEAKER_00President Trump has postponed his visit to China. The trip, which was originally scheduled for the end of the month, has been pushed back five to six weeks. Trump said it is more important to remain in Washington to focus on the conflict in the Middle East, adding that China is comfortable with the delay. On Sunday, as we can all remember, Trump said he uh his planned visit to China would depend on Beijing's willingness to help secure oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. However, according to Scott Bessent, any changes to the timing of that trip uh are due to logistics, not an effort to pressure Beijing. The postponement delays ongoing US-China trade talks, including negotiations over Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans.
SPEAKER_01Quick update on the Iran situation. Iranian attacks on the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait continued overnight. Iran confirmed the assassination of its security chief in an Israeli strike. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, although a slightly larger number of what they call dark transits linked to Iranian exports have been crossing. So the uh situation there is really not getting any better. Crude oil is still sitting close to 95 bucks this morning in the WTI. So uh the pressures have and tensions have not really eased. Trump postponing this meeting and and some of the stuff that we've heard reported uh via a Reuters report specifically earlier this week would indicate that China is probably not gonna be back for more old crop U.S. soybeans. And that is something that Trump alluded to several weeks ago. He said, you know, China might push current marketing your purchases up to 20 million. That appears unlikely now, and it looks like we're gonna be stuck at this. The official number is 10.9. Some people are saying they've hit the 12 based on some unreported stuff. But um, that's part of the reason that the soybean market's backed off is because people no longer, and some people do believe that China will be back for some more uh U.S. old crop soybeans, but people are starting to believe that that number is not gonna be another 8 million metric tons. Maybe it's another one or two, maybe it's nothing. But the the market's not as optimistic about additional uh old crop sales of U.S. soybeans to China.
SPEAKER_00Brazilian officials will travel to China to address newly imposed uh soybean inspection requirements. The visit follows stricter inspection and safety standards placed on Brazilian shipments at Beijing's request last week. The tighter requirements come after Chinese authorities detected live insects, heat damage, and pesticide and fungicide, excuse me, and fungicide-treated beans in shipments. The measures prompted Cargill to temporarily suspend Brazilian soybean exports to China. The officials aim to reach an agreement that satisfies China's requirements and enables exports to resume.
Brazil/China/Soybeans
SPEAKER_01They'll get something done here. Brazil says they're gonna negotiate a soybean inspection framework after the complaints. Um, here's the deal. So Brazil is the largest soybean exporter. They're gonna do almost three times uh what the United States did this year in exports. And ballpark, 75 to 80 percent of those Brazilian soybean exports are gonna end up in China. China needs the beans from Brazil. They've got to get something worked out, and they will. So I'm not uh necessarily concerned about this. I know some people thought this was bullish U.S. soybean prices because it's gonna steer some more business to the U.S. I just I don't know if I buy that for uh for old crop. I don't I don't necessarily see that happening. We're just we're too damn expensive relative to Brazil. What did cattle do yesterday?
SPEAKER_00Cattle futures were higher once again. Live cattle were a buck 45 to 197 higher. Feeders saw gains ranging from 432 all the way up to 522. Box beef prices were also higher. Choice was up 65 cents at 403.31, and Select was up 221 at 396.72.
SPEAKER_01S P 500 is up about half a percentage point today. The Dow's up 230. That's also about half of a percentage point. Uh, crude oil is down$1.60 in the April WTI at 94.60, but still uh holding together fairly well at elevated levels. Have a great day, guys. We'll be back on Thursday.