Katie Geerdes

Brazil keeps harvesting about 10% - 12% of their soybean crop each week, currently reaching about 40% overall. They should reach the halfway point while we are at the Commodity Classic in Denver next week. In the case of Mato Grosso, it has caught up to their historical pace and even begun to surpass it, reaching 70% harvested the middle of this week. We expect they will be on the homestretch in the next ten days.   Brazil soybean exports are starting out slow with estimates looking for 10.8 MMT so far in 2025 compared to 12 MMT this time last year. However, we expect them to accelerate as the peak export season doesn't actually take place until April/May. A major crop tour last week put Brazil's soybean crop size at 171.3 MMT finding record yields in the Center West and Northeast regions. However, it still wasn't enough to offset losses to drought in the South. The season is not over yet, and RGDS must get through the month of March without issue. The weather forecast continues unfriendly for portions of Southern Brazil. We may still find additional yield deterioration in that state, bringing the crop size down closer to…

Part 1 of Many Arizona Congressman David Schweikert says that the one thing that he is good at is doing math. Right now, that is a curse rather than a blessing because the math for the future US budget is so ugly that it literally keeps him awake at night. What keeps me awake at night is the need to explain it to all of you. I am not the math expert that he is but from my limited skill I cannot find that he has made any great errors. At the very least, he has mapped the trajectory of US debt accumulation for the next 10 years and if it is left unchanged this country's finances will implode. That is what I mean when I say that the current trajectory of the US budget is unsustainable. Elon Musk puts it simply, "The country will go bankrupt."   Schweikert on unsustainable growth of the U.S. national debt and its alarming impact on the economy: "September 30– the end of this budget year– United States debt, Congressional Budget Office, is projected to be $37.2 trillion. Ok. They're projecting over the next ten years, we add another $20 trillion. If you then, on top of that, work these provisions of…

I said some time ago that USDA would not escape being DOGEd and the purge of government workers has now come home to roost. I had hoped that they would consult some of those knowledgeable who could help with the triage but it appears that at least in the first swath being let go, the ones easiest to fire with the least ability to fight back are being shown the door. That would be the probationary workers and thousands of them have received notice that their jobs were terminated. It is immediate too as some say that their e-mail access gets turned off before they get the actual notice they had been released from service. The temporary workers say their notice says that they have been terminated for poor performance. Many had previously received the highest proficiency award. That would be agency and DOGE legal advisors wording the notice to limit legal liability and terminated employee recourse. These people did not do anything wrong and as a whole there were no performance issues. They just had to go and it is an ugly process being conducted. It would appear that the firing is going to add up to a total…

Corn futures made a new high for the move one week ago on Valentine's Day, then achieved another technical milestone this week with the nearby March contract pushing above $5 for the first time since last summer. So far, the subsequent failure of March corn to hold above $5 and prior lagging of the momentum studies point to a bigger downside correction coming. The "correction" may well remain just that – a temporary pull back in what can ultimately be a secondary trend that is on its way to flipping the primary trend into a bullish one. Here are some technical parameters that will help determine how far down the grains could dip, and where the charts would possibly have them heading on a turn back up.   In the words of RJ O'Brien chart analyst Dave Toth, "the trend remains up until/unless arrested by a bearish divergence in daily momentum..." While there is still comfortable room above what he identifies to be a next level of support for corn at $4.81, waning momentum over the last several sessions does already signal the development of short-term bearish divergence. The basic definition of bearish divergence is that it occurs when prices…

Morning Market Talk Below you will find today's installment of Moring Market Talk.   Cattle Back Under $2   You can copy and paste the link below for this morning's episode.   https://youtu.be/VtCrF1kVf04?si=EEUpShh5VUceFCEz   On the Grains   Today, we come to you from the Farm Family Master Class in Des Moines, Iowa. Last night, while the Canadians and Americans played in the finals for the 4-team faceoff, I found myself wrapped up in the game. I'm not the world's biggest hockey fan, yet I was locked in for some reason. It could possibly be the cold weather that has finally gotten to my brain or the crowd chants of U-S-A. Either way, it was wildly entertaining.   Grains are range-bound, and I don't see much change today unless weekly export sales surprise us. Soybeans continue to defy all logic. The South American harvest is in full swing, yet yesterday, beans tested the topside of resistance. I am looking for another poor week of soybean exports. We will be back with our full-length report on Monday.   On the Hogs:      The hog complex continues to look for footing, as cash, cutout, and bellies were all lower yesterday. The…

The sport that headlines the culture of many peoples living north of I-90 to somewhere in the arctic this time of year is ice hockey. We traveled to St. Paul to a professional hockey match once just to say that we did. It was entertaining. I did note that many on the Minnesota Wild team roster were Canadians. The US played Canada in a big match-up in Montreal recently and if you like fist-fights along with your hockey it was the game of the decade. It was held in Canada and when they played the US national anthem in the opening ceremony, the predominantly Canadian crowd booed loudly and persistently. They must have had something on their minds.   The US team was visibly ticked. They barely commenced with the face-off and the gloves were coming off and punches were being exchanged. The refs would stop one fight and another would erupt. 4 US players ended up sitting in the penalty box. It was a contact game and despite some penalty floor advantage for Canada, the US team managed some defense and won 3 to 1. The Canadian crowd was visually deflated like they had been gut-punched. Having been asked…

As we suggested in previous reports, soybean harvest progress in Brazil has accelerated to where it has now caught up to the historical average as precipitation levels, particularly in the Center West region have moderated the last 10 days and will continue to do so for several more days. This has allowed the harvest average to reach nearly 30% overall to start the week, and will likely remain accelerated into the weekend. The state of Mato Grosso harvested 380 million bushels, or nearly 22% of its soybean crop last week alone!  Having reached the midway point already, they have the potential to do that again this week. With so much production hitting the market at one time, it will put tremendous strain on their transportation logistical system with freight prices skyrocketing some 70% in recent days.   Late February to the first week of March we see heavy precipitation coming back in force which will be needed to germinate the second crop of corn going in now. Much like their soybeans, their safrinha corn is now roughly 50% planted and we expect it to be close to 65% planted by this Friday. To do so, they will need to plant…

Somebody has got to be first and up until now, at least in terms of global trade, it has been India which set rather than followed rules. President Trump tag-teamed with India throwing a wrench into WTO dispute panels because he did not like rulings that the thought favored China. India has been the biggest thorn in the side of the WTO. India is the primary reason that further trade liberalization talks broke down and the WTO got stuck where it is today. India has practiced aggressive protectionism, in particular in regard to food. India subsidizes its domestic food price to 800 mln voters. President Trump ordered OMB to conduct a study of which countries and which products to enact reciprocal tariffs upon. This would likely target India where it hurts. At the very least, president Trump will use this for negotiating leverage. Sometime though, he is actually going to have to follow through with a tariff threat or someone will call his bluff. OMB is unlikely to get DOGE'd until after the study. India has an average tariff rate of about 17% on imports while the average tariff rate for the US is 3.3%. The way this is supposed…

Crop insurance decisions are often a back burner item that people would rather avoid, so they often end up just carbon copying the prior year. Each and every year there are considerations to be made and we shouldn't just be running through a tunnel with a blindfold on, hoping that we reach the other end unscathed. Used properly, crop insurance can provide one the most useful tools for marketing decisions and risk management for the entire marketing year. Keep in mind that products offered through the federal crop insurance program are the ONLY vehicles available that guarantee revenue. For the bulk of the Corn Belt, 85% revenue protection is the product of choice, particularly with low market values. Now how can we tweak our coverage to try and maximize the basically breakeven price that we are setting this spring?   Every crop year there are changes being made to Multi-Peril Crop Insurance coverages. Often times these changes center around the government subsidies that accompany them. This is one of those years where they have made a significant subsidy change to one of the available add-ons, and it was actually to the benefit of the producer. ECO (Enhanced Coverage Option) is…

I typically take some reading material with me when on one of our winter excursions and did so on our January trip spending a few days in the Caribbean. One could call it research for future reports. I had never read the entire Bible cover to cover before so took along an easier reading version, “The Whole Bible Story-Everything that happens in the Bible in Plain English” with me. The order of events provided some historical clarity. The story of what happened in the Old Testament has not changed much in the over 2 millennia since. I see it continuing to unfold today as repetitious history. They are still killing and being killed in the mid-east and God's chosen people are right in the thick of it.   Exodus 21:22-24 "If any mischief follows, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot"   Things did not change until Jesus showed up in the New Testament:   Matthew 5:38-39 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But…