More than 80 dairy herds have been infected with the virus across 11 states since late March, and three dairy workers have tested positive for the virus.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health said the farmer of the affected herd reported more than 40 cows with signs of fever. The animals were tested on Monday and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the positive test on Wednesday night.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before this detection would reach our doorstep,” said Brian Hoefs, the state veterinarian, in a statement. “It’s important for dairy farmers to follow the example of this herd and test sick cows.”

The other states that have reported infected herds so far are Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina.

Dairy cows with avian flu have died or been slaughtered by farmers after not recovering, Reuters reporting found. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that the vast majority of cows recover from the illness.

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While there I also met Kaiya Novacek, cousin to Dana and Thor who is the University of Minnesota’s 4-H extension educator for Kittson County. Dana Didrickson and Novacek, along with the Northwest Minnesota Stockmen’s Association, are organizing the 2024 Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Tour coming up June 25 in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. 

For Canadian producers who are looking to see a little different country and what Minnesota cattle producers have to offer, this is the tour for you. 

This exciting in-person event will kick off at 6:30 am CDT showcasing all that northwest Minnesota has to offer in the way of cattle ranching. The tour stops include cow-calf and feedlot operations, a newly built vet clinic, Digikey (a top five global small parts distributor), Northland Community and Technical College’s ag program, and much more. 

To learn more, check out mnsca.org for more information.

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“The whole world is a little short of beans this year,” said Mitch Coulter, executive director of the Northarvest Bean Growers Association in Fargo, N.D..

He noted Mexico was already buying heavily from the U.S. and Canada, while Argentina, normally a competitor with North American beans, had troubles with its crop.

About 70 per cent of the edible beans grown in Minnesota are irrigated, “and those acres were really good,” Coulter said.

However, on the North Dakota side, “it’s variable… if we got the rains, those beans were average to slightly above average, while in other zones where we missed the rains, we had a poor crop.”

In North Dakota, producers primarily grow pinto and black beans, while kidney and navy beans are more prominent in Minnesota, according to Coulter. He described the pinto and black beans as average in terms of quality, while “the kidney beans were supreme — they really came out nice this year.”

From a marketing standpoint, Coulter expected to see strong prices going forward, with some buyers already contracting for next year’s crop. As a result, he anticipated picking up some more acres for edible beans in 2024.

U.S. farmers grew 1.02 million tonnes of edible beans in 2023-24, which was down from the 1.17 million tonnes grown the previous year due to a combination of smaller yields and reduced acres, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. North Dakota, the largest edible-bean-growing state, saw production down by roughly 22 per cent on the year at 365,500 tonnes.

Canada grew 276,600 tonnes of edible beans in 2023-24, according to Statistics Canada data, which would be down by 36,000 tonnes from the previous year and the smallest production since 2016.

Pinto beans in North Dakota are currently trading around 35 to 36 U.S. cents/lb., according to Prairie Ag Hotwire data, with black beans topping out at 40 and navies at 30. Kidney beans were bid at roughly 41 cents/lb.

In Manitoba, pinto beans delivered to the elevator were trading as high as 52.5 cents/lb., with navy beans at 53-56 cents, black beans at 57.3-60.3 and kidney beans in the 50-54 cents/lb. area.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.

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“It does not look really good at the moment. We are going to see below normal rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures during that time period,” Lerner said, noting there’s to be one major rain event midway through the week of July 17 over what he called “a moisture-stressed environment.”

The problem on the Prairies is the last several weeks, he said, is that “there’s been no moisture feed into the region. The storm will be big for western Alberta and northern Alberta. But as that storm system moves across the heart of Prairies…it’s going to run through a lot of dry air. By the time it gets to the east side of Saskatchewan, it’s going to be falling apart.”

Lerner forecast warm temperatures in the leading up to the storm and then after the storm there’s to a ridge of high pressure for several days afterward.

“We will lose all of that moisture in a day or two,” he said.

Lerner added there will likely not be any other major storms passing through the Prairies for the rest of July, but only series of scattered showers at best.

“From a spring wheat and canola perspective, it doesn’t look good,” he said.

The U.S. northern Plains were in much the same boat, particularly Montana, North Dakota and the northwestern area of South Dakota, according to Lerner. However, conditions were not as bad for the eastern half of South Dakota and a good portion of Minnesota.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Wednesday announced it had confirmed the presence of high-path H5N1 in a poultry flock in the township of Woolwich, just north of Kitchener.

Further details about the type of birds or number of mortalities weren’t yet available Wednesday afternoon. The agency’s report on the new case isn’t yet publicly available from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Cases were confirmed earlier this week in two commercial turkey flocks: one in the township of Guelph/Eramosa in Wellington County, also north of Kitchener, and the other in the township of Zorra in Oxford County, east of London.

As with the previous cases in Ontario, and in February at two farms in Nova Scotia, CFIA said Wednesday it “has placed the premises under quarantine and is establishing movement control measures and recommending enhanced biosecurity for other farms within that area.”

Separately, the Ontario poultry and egg industries’ Feather Board Command Centre, which monitors disease outbreaks in birds at the provincial, national and global levels, now says it’s monitoring reports of a “small backyard poultry flock with increased mortality” in southwestern Ontario’s upper Bruce Peninsula. There are no commercial flocks in that area, the FBCC said on its website, adding that lab tests are still pending in that case.

Other high-path H5N1 cases in Canada since last fall have included wild birds in all four Atlantic provinces and a bald eagle in the Vancouver area, plus domestic birds at two “non-poultry” farms in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and two non-commercial backyard flocks in Nova Scotia.

Since none of those cases involved commercial poultry, Canada had been considered free of high-path avian flu since 2015 just up until last month, when H5N1 was confirmed at a commercial poultry farm and at a mixed farm with poultry, both in western Nova Scotia.

After the on-farm cases in Nova Scotia were confirmed, several countries including the U.S., European Union, Japan and Korea imposed new import restrictions on Canadian poultry, eggs and/or other products, or on those from the affected province.

In the U.S. since February, cases of H5N1 have now been confirmed in commercial poultry and/or backyard flocks in 23 states — including four states directly bordering Canada.

As of Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it’s confirmed cases in flocks in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Virgina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The North Dakota outbreak, APHIS said Wednesday, is in a “non-commercial backyard chicken flock” at Kidder County, a south-central jurisdiction east of Bismarck. Minnesota’s cases have included a commercial turkey flock in Meeker County, west of Minneapolis; a “backyard mixed species” flock in Mower County, south of Rochester; and a commercial turkey flock in Stearns County, northwest of Minneapolis.

Among other states bordering Canada, cases of H5N1 were confirmed last month in two non-commercial backyard flocks in Knox County on Maine’s southern coast and in Suffolk County on New York’s Long Island.

This month cases were also confirmed in backyard flocks in Maine’s coastal Lincoln, York and Washington counties — the latter of which borders New Brunswick — and in a backyard flock and birds on a commercial game farm, both also in New York’s Suffolk County.

Avian flu viruses can, on rare occasions, cause disease in people, usually in cases where they’ve had close contact with infected birds or “heavily contaminated” environments, CFIA says.

Clinical signs in infected birds can include “high and sudden” mortality rates as well as declines in production of eggs, many of which are soft-shelled or shell-less; diarrhea; hemorrhages on the hock; quietness and “extreme depression;” swelling of the skin under the eyes; and swollen and congested wattles and combs.

Good biosecurity measures include maintaining “high sanitation standards” in barns and “strict control” over access to poultry houses; keeping poultry away from areas frequented by wild birds; cleaning and disinfecting equipment before taking it into poultry houses; and siting bird feeders or duck ponds well away from poultry barns.

CFIA also recommends people working with poultry suspected of being infected with avian flu, or in contact with such birds, wear protective clothing including face masks, goggles, gloves and boots. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Crystal Valley, which sells supplies like fertilizer to farmers and buys their crops, said it became aware of the attack on Sunday, prompting it to take operating systems offline and to stop accepting major credit cards.

“This attack has infected the computer systems at Crystal Valley and severely interrupted the daily operations of the company,” Crystal Valley said in a statement on its website. It asked customers for understanding while the company resolves the issue.

The attack left Crystal Valley unable to mix fertilizer or fulfil orders for livestock feed, said Kevin Paap, a corn and soybean farmer in Garden City, Minnesota, on Thursday.

“With the help of some other local co-ops, they’re helping grind some feed and sharing the burden,” he said.

NEW Cooperative Inc. in Iowa said on Monday its systems were offline to contain a cybersecurity incident. A Russian-speaking cybercriminal group named BlackMatter said on its website that it stole data from the farm services provider.

The disruptions are hitting the Farm Belt as growers gear up for the autumn harvest.

Crystal Valley operates eight grain elevators with the capacity to store a total of 25 million bushels in the south of Minnesota, the third biggest U.S. soybean-producing state and fourth biggest corn producer, according to its website. Two locations load huge 110-car trains for delivery to big buyers or exporters.

Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, said he has been able to deliver grain to Crystal Valley’s elevator in Vernon Center with minor delays as the normally automated process is offline.

“It’s old school, with hand-written tickets instead of the computer reading the card on the side of your truck as you drive in,” he said.

Cybersecurity has risen to the top of the Biden administration’s agenda after high-profile attacks that affected U.S. fuel and food supplies.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tom Polansek and Karl Plume.

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Pressure also stemmed from forecasts for rains in northwestern portions of the Midwest that could improve production prospects, particularly for soybeans.

Wheat followed the weak trend in corn and soy, retreating after sharp gains last week that were linked to concerns over Northern Hemisphere harvest prospects.

A firmer dollar added to bearish sentiment, making U.S. grains less competitive globally. The greenback hit a nine-month high against a basket of other major currencies.

Chicago Board of Trade December corn settled down 14-1/4 cents at $5.50-3/4 per bushel (all figures US$). November soybeans ended down 33-1/4 cents at $13.20 a bushel, and December wheat fell 8-1/2 cents to settle at $7.42-3/4 a bushel.

“You can look at the outside markets as a trigger. You have the dollar into a contract high, and the crude oil down by $2. … You have got people getting away from long positions here, margin issues, and it (market weakness) feeds on itself,” said Terry Linn, analyst with Linn and Associates in Chicago.

Welcome showers were expected over the next few days in the Dakotas and Minnesota, areas that have struggled all summer with drought. The region’s corn crop is past its key growth phase, but soybeans are still developing and could benefit from moisture.

“These rains will be helpful,” Linn said, “but you’re not all of a sudden going to come up to a trend-line yield because of these.”

Traders continue to digest findings from this week’s Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour.

The tour late on Wednesday projected corn yields and soybean pod counts in Illinois above a three-year average. The tour is expected to release estimates for all of Iowa and Minnesota later on Thursday.

Improving export demand for U.S. soybeans underpinned futures. U.S. soybean export sales topped two million tonnes in the week ended Aug. 12, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its daily reporting system confirmed private sales of 263,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to China and 148,590 tonnes to Mexico, the latest in a string of deals.

— Reporting for Reuters by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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Though Democrats retained control of the House and therefore will again chair the committee, Peterson’s exit could shift U.S. spending away from a region hammered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, they said.

Ruling parties take seniority into account when selecting committee chairs, providing an opening for senior House Democrats such as Reps. Jim Costa of California, David Scott of Georgia and Marcia Fudge of Ohio to lead the agriculture committee.

Midwest farmers raise pigs and grow the bulk of soybeans and corn in the U.S., while California is known for fruit and vegetable crops and southern states like Georgia produce chickens.

For Minnesotans, “the clout that he had on the ag committee is lost to us,” said Laura Lemke, executive director of the Minnesota Grain and Feed Association.

The House agriculture committee has jurisdiction over a vast range of agriculture and rural issues, including the Farm Bill, renewable energy, disaster assistance, nutrition and crop insurance. The latest Farm Bill, passed once every five years, expires in 2023 and mandates spending of about US$428 billion.

Discussion of the bill starts years in advance.

Former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, said Peterson’s defeat was “devastating” because he understood intricacies of the legislation. He has long worked with Republicans, who will likely retain control of the Senate.

“Colin knew more about the Farm Bill than anyone else in Congress,” Heitkamp said.

Republican Michelle Fischbach beat Peterson and will seek a seat on the committee, her campaign said.

The next job for Peterson, age 76, could be at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and a former USDA chief economist.

“I would think that if Biden wins, Peterson would go right to the top of the list for USDA secretary,” Glauber said.

Peterson did not respond to requests for comment.

— Reporting for Reuters by PJ Huffstutter and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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Wheat ended higher as traders digested competing signals for global supply.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board Of Trade closed down 8-3/4 cents at $9.05-1/4 a bushel (all figures US$).

CBOT corn fell 1/2 cents to $3.39-1/4 a bushel, while wheat ended up 6-1/2 cents at $5.28-1/2 a bushel.

Strong soybean yield estimates from a widely followed crop tour in parts of Iowa and Minnesota on Thursday, coupled with possible rain in the seven- to 10-day forecast for parts of the upper Midwest, pressured futures.

“Even though we’re dry,” said Karl Setzer, commodity risk analyst for AgriVisor. “The crops look pretty good, the ratings are relatively high and there’s better chances of rain coming at us.”

U.S. soybean export sales data for the week ending Aug. 13 also weighed on the oilseed, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a net cancellation of 12,600 tonnes of soybeans slated to be shipped in the 2019-20 marketing year.

Continued buying from top soybean importer China is uncertain as diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing persist.

Corn futures were down, but losses were limited as strong crop tour estimates in states like Illinois, Indiana and Nebraska outweigh damage as scouts reviewed storm-ravaged Iowa fields on Wednesday and Thursday.

Some analysts do not think the market has fully absorbed the storm’s impact on the corn carryout.

“Is losing 400 million bushels only worth 25 cents? I don’t think it is,” said John Zanker, market analyst for Risk Mgt Commodities, who recently drove through Iowa.

Wheat traded neutral as rising expectations for Russia’s harvest and potential drought damage in Argentina painted a mixed picture for export competition.

“We’ve got plenty of wheat right now, but there’s going to be demand,” said Setzer.

— Reporting for Reuters by Christopher Walljasper; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.

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In Iowa, crop prospects swung wildly from field to field, according to scouts on the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour’s fourth and final day.

Mark Bernard, a Minnesota-based agronomist on the tour, made eight stops in northeastern Iowa and found corn yield potential ranging from 81 to 212 bushels per acre. Last year’s tour average in the same area was 184.66 bu./ac. and the three-year average was 187.21.

Along with wind damage, dry conditions are also stressing Iowa’s crops.

“There are big cracks in the ground,” Bernard said.

But in southern Minnesota, where weather woes plagued farmers last year, conditions improved dramatically over parts of Iowa.

“It’s like a switch got flipped,” said Jeff Wilson, a crop tour leader and senior market analyst for trade publication Pro Farmer.

Scouts found corn yield potential averaging a massive 219 bu./ac. at 14 stops in six southwestern Minnesota counties, nearly 40 per cent higher than last year’s crop tour average in the same area and about 27 per cent above the three-year tour average.

The tour does not estimate soybean yields, but instead calculates the number of soy pods in a three-foot-by-three-foot square to gauge yield potential. In those Minnesota counties, soybeans averaged 1,192 pods, above the year-ago and three-year averages.

Scouts on a second Minnesota route made 18 stops in six south-central Minnesota counties and calculated an average corn yield potential of 202 bu./ac., while soybean pod counts averaged at 1,116 pods, also firmly up from the area’s year-ago and three-year averages.

The tour is scheduled to release state yield forecasts for Iowa and Minnesota later on Thursday.

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter and Julie Ingwersen in Chicago.

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