Marketing

Grain Outlook Corn market not for faint of heart

The following marketing analysis is for the week ending Feb. 4.

CORN — Chart action in corn wasn’t encouraging to begin the week when a new contract high was established; but we closed near the day’s low. The trading ranges were large during the week and at mid-week March corn posted a key reversal lower when prices tested, but couldn’t push through, the contract high. Technically, this week’s action was not friendly. Fundamentally, corn has been supported by the strength in soybeans and the December contract continues to fight for acres. The December corn made a new contract high at $5.80.25 before pulling back.

The uncertainty between PHYLLIS NYSTROM Ukraine, Russia, and NATO CHS Hedging inC. nations seems to have stabilized St. Paul until after the Olympics which end Feb. 20. The countries mentioned all signed an agreement that China introduced to the United Nations to not do anything until a week after the Olympics end.

The Feb. 9 World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates report will answer some of the lingering questions about Chinese demand and South American production. The U.S. Department of Agriculture attaché in Beijing cut his old crop Chinese corn import forecast to 20 million metric tons compared to the January USDA projection at 26 mmt. That’s a difference of 236.2 million bushels. Will the USDA follow suit? Last year, China imported 29.5 mmt. The attaché also put China’s ending stocks at 214.2 mmt compared to the USDA estimate of 210.2 mmt.

It was a surprise late in the week when the USDA announced China canceled nearly 15 million bushels of old crop corn purchases. This was the largest single-day cancellation of U.S. corn in at least seven years! This leaves them with 338 million bushels of unshipped old crop U.S. corn purchases. This will show up on next week’s weekly export report.

Weekly export sales were within expectations at 46.3 million bushels. Total commitments at 1.8 billion bushels are now 20 percent behind last year. We need to average 20.2 million bushels of sales per week to hit the USDA’s 2.425 billion bushel bullseye. Last year at this time, China was heavily buying U.S. corn. Japan and Mexico were the leading buyers for the week ended Jan. 27.

Cash Grain Markets

corn/change* soybeans/change*

St. Cloud $6.22 +.12 $15.14 +1.52 Madison $6.14 +.14 $15.29 +1.47 Redwood Falls $6.17 +.07 $15.09 +1.46 Fergus Falls $6.17 +.17 $15.29 +1.62 Morris $6.17 +.13 $15.29 +1.57 Tracy

$6.16 +.10 $15.09 +1.54 Average: $6.17 $15.20 Year Ago Average: $4.88 $13.03

Grain prices are effective cash close on Feb. 8. *Cash grain price change represents a two-week period.

Weekly ethanol production was up 6,000 barrels per day to 1.04 million bpd. Ethanol stocks jumped 1.4 million barrels to 25.8 million barrels and are at record levels for late January as well as the highest since April 2020. Days of usage on hand are reportedly the highest since May 2020. Gasoline demand fell from 8.5 million bpd to 8.2 million bpd. Margins however did recover 11 cents to a positive 5 cents per gallon.

The average trade estimates for the Feb. 9 WASDE report: U.S. corn carryout at 1.512 billion bushels vs. 1.540 last month; world ending stocks at 300.32 mmt vs. 303 mmt in January; Argentina’s crop at 52.16 mmt vs. 54.00 mmt last month; Brazil’s corn crop at 113.63 mmt vs. 115 mmt last month. The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange lowered its Argentina corn rating 4 percent to 28 percent good/excellent with planting 99 percent complete.

In other news, Russia plans to ban exports of ammonium nitrate for two months beginning immediately. China and Russia signed a 30-year natural gas deal. The two countries issued a joint statement calling for a halt to any NATO expansion. Russia expressed support for China’s “One China” policy concerning Taiwan. China will allow wheat and barley imports from all parts of Russia, lifting restrictions which were on for parts of Russia. This could mean larger shipments to China through the Black Sea.

Outlook: Where is your risk? That is a more important question to ask yourself about unsold old crop bushels and yet-to-be-grown new crop bushels. Fear of missing out shouldn’t drive your marketing plan. There are ways to participate in a rally/protect against a price decline without leaving yourself open to a black swan sell-off.

The February WASDE, what happens in the Black Sea region, and how Brazil’s safrinha corn crop develops will be the headlines to watch. Technically, the charts are still in an uptrend; but short indicators suggest a pull back. We’ll need fresh food for the bulls to climb to the next level. Where will it come from: inflation fears, lower estimates out of South America? This market isn’t for the faint of heart, but you still need to manage your risk. Be flexible and pay attention to what early acreage estimates surface.

For the week, March corn was 15.5 cents lower at $6.20.5, July declined 7.75 cents at $6.18.5, and the December contract was 4.25 cents higher at $5.73.75 per bushel.

SOYBEANS — Soybeans were a wild ride this week as prices rose dramatically before finally snapping a seven-session winning streak in the last half of the week. From the recent low on Jan. 24 to the contract high on Feb. 2, March soybeans rallied $1.81.5! Price spikes were experienced at times during the week in both the night and day sessions. This makes traders cautious. Case in point, on Feb. 3 at 5:33 a.m., volume in March soybeans jumped to 5000 contracts and prices surged over 20 cents in a minute. At that time of the morning, the volume was shocking. Why the action? Someone made a mistake? Unable to meet a margin call? We’ll never know, but it shows the volatility.

South American weather has improved over the last couple of weeks, but heat is expected to move back into Argentina in the middle of February. Estimates for Brazil’s soybean crop continue to shrink with the lowest estimate I’ve seen at 125 mmt. Last fall, most estimates were in the 144 mmt area. What we’re trying to determine now is what losses are irreversible. We may not have that answer until well after their harvest is complete. Soybean offers out of Brazil are thin and farmer selling has slowed as they see higher prices and may be unsure what percentage of their crop has been sold. China was on holiday for the entire week for Lunar New Year celebrations, but this didn’t mean we didn’t see business from them.

Trade estimates for the February WASDE report: U.S. carryout at 310 million bushels vs. 350 million in January; world carryout at 91.51 mmt vs. 95.2 mmt last month; Argentina’s crop at 44.51 mmt vs. 46.5 mmt last month; Brazil’s soybean crop at 133.65 mmt vs. 139 mmt last month. The BAGE lowered its Argentine soybean production 2 mmt to 42 mmt and the Rosario Grain Exchange is at 40 mmt. The BAGE pegged the soybean rating at 37 percent good/excellent, down 1 percent from the previous week. Last year’s conditions were rated at 17 percent good/excellent. Conab will update its Brazilian crop production forecast the day after the WASDE report.

Weekly export sales were a marketing year high in soymeal and at the upper end of expectations in soybeans. Soybean sales were 40.3 million bushels, bringing total commitments to 1.66 billion bushels. We are running 23 percent behind last year when the USDA is projecting a 9.5 percent decline year-onyear. We need 12.8 million bushels of sales per week to achieve the USDA’s 2.05 billion bushel goal. Mexico was the biggest buyer and China had net

See NYSTROM, pg. 17

MIELKE, from pg. 14

November, $11 above December 2020, but is $2.50 below the 2011 base average of $71.60 per cwt.

Dairy economist Bill Brooks, of Stoneheart Consulting in Dearborn, Mo., stated in the Feb.7 “Dairy Radio Now” broadcast there will be no Dairy Margin Coverage payment for December, ending 12 straight months. The Farm Service Agency announced the December 2021 milk margin above feed costs at $9.53 per cwt., Brooks said, up 39 cents from November, 99 cents above December 2020, and just 3 cents above the maximum coverage. “This is the first time since November 2020 that producers with coverage at $9.50 per cwt, will not receive a payment on eligible production,” according to Brooks.

Based on his Feb. 2 estimates, Brooks does not see a payment the rest of 2022, adding the caveat, that markets have a tendency to change quickly so the program is still one that producers need to consider and make sure they’re active in. He said the 2022 fundamentals look like there will be a small cushion between the rising costs producers are seeing; but more than likely, it won’t be enough for some producers, as rising interest rates on operating loans come into play.

He doesn’t see a big incentive for producers to add cows. However, he concluded, “At any level, somebody is making money milking cows and somebody’s losing money, so there probably will be some producers who will add cows. But in general, if they do, it’s probably not going to have a massive impact on increasing our herd size here this year.”

In the week ending Jan. 22, 62,500 dairy cows were sent to slaughter. This is up 400 from the previous week, but 5,400 head or 7.95 percent below a year ago.

n

The Consortium for Common Food Names requested the U.S. government “further its efforts to proactively secure firm and explicit commitments from trading partners to preserve the rights of common name users and strongly combat the EU’s misuse of geographical indications to monopolize generic food and beverage terms.”

The request comes in comments filed this week by CCFN with the U.S. Trade Representative as part of the agency’s annual Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protections comment process. More than 160 Members of Congress have already called on USTR to take similar steps.

“The EU’s deliberate campaign of misusing the GI system to confiscate common food and beverage names is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to stifle legitimate competition and cut American producers out of the EU and third country markets,” said Jaime Castaneda, CCFN executive director.

Lee Mielke is a syndicated columnist who resides in Everson, Wash. His weekly column is featured in newspapers across the country and he may be reached at lkmielke@juno.com. v

Fight for spring acres is underway

NYSTROM, from pg. 16

cancellations of 1 million bushels. China has 91.8 million bushels of unshipped bushels on the books. This week, between China and unknown destinations, we saw USDA export sales flashes of 25.7 million bushels for old crop and 8.75 million bushels for new crop; so the appetite for soybeans remains in place. In January, China and unknown combined to purchase 69.8 million bushels of new crop soybeans. Total new crop export commitments are 76.4 million bushels. The December National Agricultural Statistics Service Oilseed Crush was a record 198.2 million bushels and above expectations. Soyoil stocks were below estimates at 2.466 billion pounds but were the highest in nine years.

In other news, OPEC+ said they will stay with the plan to increase 400,000 bpd in March. Crude oil surpassed $90 this week.

Outlook: Watch the WASDE report for where Brazil’s soybean production comes in as this may be the highlight of the report. The market will also be looking for any new business when China returns from its holiday. Have the smaller South American crop estimates and possible increased demand for U.S. soybeans this summer already been factored into prices? Have we rationed demand at this price level? It doesn’t seem like we have yet; but unless something fresh pops up, we could expect a period of consolidation as farmers weigh their decisions for U.S. spring planting. We can’t afford any problems with this year’s soybean crop — either on acreage or with the weather.

The fight for spring acres is gaining attention. November soybeans set a new contract high at $14.00 per bushel this week and December corn at $5.80.25 per bushel. This summer has the earmarks for continued high volatility with traders hypothesizing “what if” scenarios if Brazil’s bean crop is below 125 mmt.

For the week, March soybeans rallied 83.5 cents to $15.53.5, July jumped 80 cents to $15.53.5, and November was 44.25 cents higher at $13.95.75 per bushel.

Weekly price changes in March wheat for the week ended Feb. 4: Chicago wheat dropped 23 cents to $7.63.25, Kansas City fell 16.5 cents to $7.85.75, and Minneapolis was 7.25 cents lower at $9.13 per bushel. v

University of Minnesota video details butchering process

SWINE & U, from pg. 15

Proper labeling and storage of the meat product is important. Prepare to have adequate space to store the meat product at a safe temperature.

The health condition of the individuals doing the butchering is important to food safety too. A person coughing and sneezing while butchering could result in microbiological contamination of food, food packaging materials, and food contact surfaces.

Exclusion of pests from the food. If butchering outdoors, pests such as flies, ants or birds can spread bacteria and other contaminants to the meat.

Proper handling of the pig

The condition in which a pig is handled prior to butchering impacts its well-being. In addition, research has shown that poor or improper handling can cause adverse effects on the quality of the pork from that pig. A stressed and agitated pig will also be much more difficult to handle. When handling a pig, it is recommended to have sorting panels or solid plywood to help guide the pig in the direction you want it to go.

The sorting board can be used to restrain a pig’s movement, for example, to restrain the pig along a gate or side of a pen for stunning. When doing this, it is important to use sturdy gating and ensure that the pig has good footing to minimize chance of the pig slipping. If a firearm is used to stun the pig, plan and think about human safety in terms of the surrounding area and flooring the pig is on to minimize the chance of the bullet ricocheting off objects if the pig is missed or the bullet goes through the pig.

Although this article has covered many details of human safety, pig welfare and food safety, the video, “How to butcher a pig for home use,” created by the University of Minnesota Extension Swine Team, explains these points and more. It also shows the butchering process from bleed-out through the cutting of the carcass into primal cuts.

Check it out if you plan to butcher a pig (https://z. umn.edu/HowToButcherPigVideo).

Sarah Schieck Boelke is a University of Minnesota Extension Educator based in the U of M Extension office in Willmar, Minn. Sarah can be reached by telephone at (320) 235-0726 ext. 2004, or by email at schi0466@umn.edu. v

By JORDAN SMITH

Mankato Free Press

When Katy Wortel thinks about her decades of environmental activism, which include six years as a Blue Earth County commissioner, she initially seems preoccupied with regrets. She knows many people came to dislike her.

Wortel was shocked to win the county board’s District 3 seat in 2002. She ran as an ardent environmentalist who made a modest living farming pumpkins and gourds on Pohl Road, where she and her husband own 12 acres and have lived in a brown brick colonial home for about 40 years.

The county board was neglecting negative outcomes of agricultural land use to soil, water and air quality, she felt. She saw a lack of commitment to being responsible stewards of nature.

“I had some notoriety, good and bad, so I ran and I surprised myself and everyone else in town that I won,” she said. “It was the most surprise election, I think, that we’ve ever had in this area.”

Since she was in elementary school, Wortel, now 72, has been argumentative. An independent spirit led her to frequent spats with her parents. Fueled by her autonomy, she didn’t fear unpopular stances.

Fittingly, she was alone in her first instance of volunteering to better the environment.

Before households had recycling bins, she said, people would bring glass, metal and plastic to the Hy-Vee store in downtown Mankato. A frequent recycler herself, Wortel noticed how cluttered the public bin became.

She decided one day to clean it up, sort items into their proper categories and remove any garbage. Her effort lasted a few years until the increased volume of recyclables made the work overly tedious.

Her public activism began in the 1980s when the company operating the local Wilmarth coal power plant proposed that it be converted to a waste-burning facility serving the Twin Cities.

She formed a coalition of concerned citizens who opposed it, arguing that the cities needed to do more to reduce and reuse waste before the Mankato plant agreed to burn it and risk pollution.

The effort didn’t stop the conversion. To this day the Wilmarth plant, now operated by Xcel Energy, burns waste at temperatures which the county says are high enough to destroy or remove nearly all pollutants while producing electricity.

Despite the outcome, Wortel was emboldened. She came to serve on a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency task force monitoring garbage incinerators.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s she founded environmental advocacy groups such as Mankato Area Environmentalists and the Southcentral Minnesota Clean Energy Council, for which she is now a representative.

Wortel carried strong Wortel only now sees convictions into her ten- why the disparity ure as a county commis- between her own righsioner, often struggling teous cause and that of to make compromises farmers — feeding their that conflicted with her own and many other values, she said. families — ended in dis“I like to argue and take the sometimes unpopular position, cord. Differing root motivations led to hostile disagreements. which may, by the way, Making a difference, have been the right she has learned, seems position,” she said. “But inevitably to lead to I never was a person of making enemies. much finesse.” “Sometimes when

Her independent you’re working for mindset prevented some change it doesn’t matter accomplishments that how good you are,” might have been viewed Wortel said. “A changeas “baby steps” toward maker is always given a substantive change, she rough time, really.” said. But it also motivated her to keep pursuing larger goals. She sees room, however, for respect and empathy for one’s ideological opponents. In her case she

The conflict she regrets most from her term is back- said it should have entailed more acknowledgment of lash against her aims to move the area toward more farmers’ stress about how to earn money. sustainable farming practices. Wortel is blunt: “I did a really poor job at that. I was a little farmer, and the big farmers don’t really look at a little farmer as a farmer.” As she recedes into retirement and works with a lower profile on environmental causes, Wortel sees that on the whole she made positive change. For that reason she doubts whether she was the right person to forge ahead against predominantly male farmers who abide by what she calls an “entrenched” agricultural system. And she hasn’t lost faith in the power of small gestures that may improve the environment and bring more people to the work. But the facts of the system, she says, remain grim. A trend toward large-scale monocropping of corn and soybeans has depleted soil health and eroded the market for smaller properties that seek to rotate crops and encourage plant diversity, Wortel said. Her pandemic project was to clear common buckthorn, an invasive species, from the tract of woods behind her home. In her side yard she is growing a garden for pollinators and a swath of prairie plants. With the new year she hopes to create a pond in the place of her former pumpkin patch to reduce the sur-

“Farmers are taking more out of the soil than rounding area’s water runoff into the Minnesota River. they’re putting back in,” she said. She avidly composts her food waste. She bought an

“And some of them, I think, probably understand electric car, a Nissan Leaf. She continues to reduce that even,” she added. “It’s just that they’re caught in waste and recycle; on a walk around her property, she this system. And so then it’s back to: How can we stopped several times to pick up plastic bags strewn change the whole system and get farmers uncaught about by a previous day’s strong winds. in it? And that’s where we maybe could have worked together and not had the butting of heads so much.” Perhaps as important as fighting the well-funded forces that drive climate change, she knows, is com-

Wortel won reelection to the county board in 2004 bating the hopelessness induced by a realization that and served until 2008, when conservative business- it’s likely too late to avoid serious consequences. man Mark Piepho unseated her campaign. with a better-funded Her advice is to take the next step, the one you know to be moral, even when future measures are

After decades of striving to uproot or reform flawed unclear. systems, Wortel understands the plight of younger activists who protest the robust fossil fuel industry. That detrimental, human-caused climate change is now a widely accepted reality is evidence of their Of the planet’s irreversible warming, she concedes, “We’re all gonna maybe have broken spirits for a while. But we need to heal and keep going.” progress, she thinks. “It’s not time to give up yet,” she added with a

Unless they’re an “expert in human psychology,” forced cheer. She paused. “If ever.” she said half-jokingly, any advocate may have to live The Free Press and The Land are sister publications with the contempt of those who resist change. owned by The Free Press Media. v

Photo by Pat Christman Katy Wortel, an area environmentalist who from 2003 to 2008 served as a Blue Earth County commissioner, fills a feeder with bird seed at her Pohl Road property.