Wheat Market is Under Even More Pressure, Analyst Says
Successful Farming – 03/30/2019 An early week rally into Tuesday buckled and wheat headed lower again, getting another bearish boost from Friday’s stocks and plantings report. Wheat prices continue to flounder with large stocks, good growing conditions across the Northern Hemisphere and aggressive export competition. As for the reports, both wheat and corn markets were caught off-guard. Wheat plantings came in at 45.754 million acres, the lowest since records began in 1919, and much less than the 47.0 million acre estimate. If realized, all wheat plantings would be 4% below last year’s 47.8 million acres.
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Commodities’ Best Quarter Since 2016 May Be Tough Act to Follow
Bloomberg – 03/31/2019 Commodities had their best quarter in almost three years, driven by supply concerns and optimism over demand. Investors, though, might not want to get too cocky. Now, the outlook for demand is running into troubling signs in the U.S. and China, the two biggest consumers. In early March, China cut its goal for economic expansion, while a report Thursday showed U.S. growth cooled more than forecast. “It’s hard to make the case that, overall, commodities can stay in this uptrend,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle, which oversees $164 billion. “Grains will have a tough time, and for industrial metals the underlying question is: what really is going on with China’s growth?”…Among crops, even with the fewest U.S. acres planted in about a century, the hard red wheat variety formerly known as Kansas City wheat has been foundering. Abundant supplies in storage and sufficient rainfall, especially in the top wheat-growing state of Kansas, have weighed on wheat prices.
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‘Constructive’ China Talks Resume in DC
Agri-Pulse – 03/31/2019 The U.S.-China trade negotiations return to Washington this week amid signs of progress, while Senate Republicans seek to move forward with a long-stalled package of disaster aid eagerly awaited by a growing list of farmers. Beijing’s official news agency, Xinhua, reported Friday that U.S. and Chinese negotiators were studying the text of a possible final agreement after talks last week that involved U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The White House said in a statement that the two sides “continued to make progress during candid and constructive discussions on the negotiations and important next steps. The United States looks forward to the meetings planned with Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese delegation in Washington.”
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China Touts Progress with U.S. as Both Focus on a Final Deal
Bloomberg– 03/29/2019 Chinese and U.S. negotiators made “new progress” in trade negotiations as both sides discussed the wording of an agreement that’s designed to resolve a bilateral trade dispute, according to Beijing’s official news agency Xinhua. The report echoed officials familiar with the talks who said negotiators have been working line-by-line through the text of an agreement that can be put before President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held meetings in Beijing Friday partly to ensure there were no discrepancies in the English- and Chinese-language versions of the text, and also to balance the number of working visits to each capital, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified because the talks aren’t public.
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OSU Extension Partners with Growers to Bring Hands-on Wheat
Education to 4-H Members
Capital Press – 03/26/2019 To the rural farming regions of central Oregon, ag education is as fundamental as math and reading. That’s one reason community members came together to fund an innovative education program that sent third-graders to college. Oregon State University Extension Service partnered with Oregon Wheat Growers League members from Jefferson, Crook and Deschutes counties to create a unit on producing and processing wheat for more than 100 OSU Extension 4-H members at Metolius Elementary School in Jefferson County in 2017 and 2018. In four short lessons, kids learned about wheat germination, growth, harvest and the many uses of the crop. Students ground wheat with small hand mills or a mortar and pestle, then mixed up dough, flattened it into flour tortillas, and sampled the end product.
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