CBOT March 2020 wheat with 20-, 50- and 100-day moving averages. (Barchart)

U.S. grains: Wheat sags on adequate world supplies, fund selling

Corn follows wheat lower; soy flat

Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat futures fell to a seven-week low on Tuesday as signs of adequate global supplies and softening world cash prices triggered a round of what appeared to be fund-driven long liquidation, analysts said. Corn futures also fell while soybeans ended flat to fractionally higher after the U.S. Department of Agriculture […] Read more


(ThamKC/iStock/Getty Images)

Ethanol woes spur new feed focus for Green Plains

Biofuel maker to reinvent itself as DDGS-based feed maker

Chicago | Reuters — Green Plains Inc., one of the biggest U.S. ethanol producers, is planning to flip its business model upside down to survive a crash in prices for the corn-based fuel. The company will invest some $400 million in the next two to three years at its 13 plants to make high-protein, corn-based […] Read more

A spray plane flies over a swarm of desert locusts at Lemasulani village in Kenya’s Samburu County on Jan. 17, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Njeri Mwangi)

Drones to be tested against Africa’s locust swarms

U.N.'s FAO testing drones to detect, spray pests

Nairobi | Thomson Reuters Foundation — The United Nations is to test drones equipped with mapping sensors and atomizers to spray pesticides in parts of east Africa battling an invasion of desert locusts that are ravaging crops and exacerbating a hunger crisis. Hundreds of millions of the voracious insects have swept across Ethiopia, Somalia and […] Read more



Scoular sidewalk chalk art at the Engredea Expo in Anaheim, Calif. in 2017. (Scoular video screengrab via YouTube)

Scoular to sell edible bean business

MarketsFarm — The Scoular Company has made a deal to sell its edible beans business in Manitoba and the northern U.S. to a Michigan edible bean processing and exporting co-op. Cooperative Elevator Co., which is owned by over 1,100 U.S. farmers and operates mainly in Michigan’s “thumb” northeast of Flint, announced Friday it will buy […] Read more


(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Manitoba reviewing underused forage insurance plans

About 18 per cent of forage acres insured

The Manitoba government is taking a look at its Crown crop insurance agency’s relatively under-subscribed offerings to forage growers. The provincial ag department said Tuesday it has launched a review “to better understand the purchasing decisions of Manitoba producers when it comes to forage insurance products” available via Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. (MASC). Over 1,200 […] Read more




(Rahr.com)

Strong export demand, acreage ahead for barley

Lower supplies from Australia benefit Canadian growers

MarketsFarm — Canadian malting barley acreage is expected to remain high in the coming year, mostly due to strong export demand. Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Center in Winnipeg, said tough harvest conditions were partially to blame for lowered malt barley output in 2019. “We had a fairly lousy harvest, […] Read more