Aug 14 | Closing Market Report
From the Lend to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois. This is the closing market report for the August 2025. I'm extension's Tuck Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Matt Bennett. He's at agmarket.net out of Windsor, Illinois.
Todd Gleason:I'll update you on the agricultural news for the day. We'll hear from Joanna Colucci too. She's an agricultural economist here on the Urbana Champaign campus of the University of Illinois about that 50% tariff that the president has imposed on Brazil and the impact it may have on commodities like coffee and beef. Then we'll turn our attention to the weather forecast with Mike Tenora. It's going to turn hot, says Mike.
Todd Gleason:There is a chance for rainfall as well. We'll do that as we close out our time here on this Thursday edition of the closing market report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand anytime you'd like. Look us up as a podcast, podcast, search it out by name, or visit our website at willag.0rg. Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason:September corn for the day settled at $3.75. That was a penny higher. December, '3 97 at a quarter, unchanged. March at $4.14, down 1¢. September soybeans, 16 and a half cents lower, $10.07 and a half.
Todd Gleason:November, $10.28 and a half a bushel, down fifteen and three quarters of a cent, and January at $10.48 and a quarter, 14 and a half cents lower. Bean meal futures down $2.70. The bean oil, a dollar 40 lower. Weed futures soft red December at $5.24 and a half down three and three quarters. The hard red December at $5.26.
Todd Gleason:It finished down 2¢ for the day. The live cattle futures in Chicago at $226.82 and a half cents, $2.60 lower. Feeder cattle $3.41 and 2 and a half cents down $5.60. And lean hogs for the day at $89.12 and a half cents that for a 100 pounds, it finished down a dollar and 65¢ on this Thursday. Kurt Kimmel from agmarket.net now joins us as Matt Bennett is taking the stage and I wasn't able to get hold of him.
Todd Gleason:Thanks for filling him in short notice, Kurt. I appreciate that a lot.
Curt Kimmel:No problem. No problem, Ted. Matt's been a busy guy here the last two weeks. He's been working with the seed company, Beck's, on the technology days to do some, different programs for them. So he's been, hanging with those guys here, and been quite busy, but more than happy to fill in.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. Well, last last week when I talked to him, I think he was in Nebraska, and they were speaking to 1,500 producers, in kind of Western Britain, Nebraska. So it's a big deal, technology days. I might have to get to one of those eventually to see what they have on offer because they must be a big show. Anyway, the big show today was in soybeans at the CME Group in Chicago where they lost, I don't know, 16¢ or thereabouts.
Todd Gleason:What happened to that particular product?
Curt Kimmel:Well, a little bit of back and a feeling. Of course, everyone knows the report, the market reaction there, but we absorbed pricing quite a bit of that news. If you're a technician, the November soybean futures went up into that $10.45 $10.46 area and up going up to $10.49 here last night. Kind of filled a chart gap, got close to 10.5 and that's probably about enough. Also when you look at the chart, draw a line sideways, you see we had some previous highs in these levels through here.
Curt Kimmel:And I think it was just the function of the market to kind of take a breath here and back and fill. When you look at the supply demand balance sheet, yes, it's going to be a little tighter than what the trade was looking for. But the main concern is the crop not being sold up by the producer. Whenever we do get into harvesting through here, we're kind of fearful or concerned that beans are going to be the one to be moved. Seems like guys like storing corn or bagging corn And so there's gonna be quite a few beans sold.
Curt Kimmel:Also when you look at the commercial side of the equation, China being absent is bean basis is starting to get kind of sloppy in some areas in through here. And lastly, too, some of these processors are taking a little downtime, so it's just a function of the market here after the big rally we saw off the nine eighty area up to close to ten fifty is probably a little bit enough for downtime.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. And insult to injury after the USDA report showed a much larger yield for corn earlier this week and also added acreage. Conab, Brazil's counterpart in, to USDA, this morning told us that they were increasing the size of their corn crop by 200, actually a 198,000,000, but 200 is a nice round number, million bushels when you do the conversion. It appears corn actually took that news fairly well today. I was surprised.
Curt Kimmel:Yeah. Corn's corn's been very little beat up here. It's been the short end of the spread activity here. We did see some fresh sales today. We sold 136,000 tons of corn to South Korea, 132,000 tons of corn to Spain.
Curt Kimmel:So if you're an economist, I think the market's doing its job going lower here seeking out demand and finding a little bit of demand. But the big thing too is we do these technology days and we had one just north of town here in El Paso, You take Central Illinois, even portions of Western Illinois, you start moving towards east into Western Indiana. Guys are going out into the field here and actually pulling back shuck and confirming we're seeing a little pollination issue and quite a bit of tip back taking place here. These showers or rain events have been kind of hit and miss. I don't know how big a region as a nation, but it'd be quite interesting to see what, Chip and his group has to, see here next week as they share that information as they go across Midwest and visually, pull back shucks and see what type of pollination took place.
Todd Gleason:Yeah. The Pro Farmer crop tour ticks off on Sunday evening, actually, really on Monday. They gather Sunday, to make their way across the Midwest. We'll talk with Sherman Newland each day that week, and we'll hear from, Pro Farmer as well, I believe. Sherman will be on the Western Lake.
Todd Gleason:He usually travels that. I don't this is five or seven years, something along those lines. So same routes normally. So he's he's got a good idea of what it looks like at this point, and be interesting to hear from him. What else have you been watching this week as it relates to the marketplace, and the things that are important for producers?
Todd Gleason:You talked about basis for soybeans and possibly breaking part of that due to China, part of it just storage, also due to China, unavailable storage that is. Does it have much of an impact on corn?
Curt Kimmel:We see the same situation in corn. If you're a buyer of corn, you're kind of stepping back and, man, we got crop coming. How big? They're going to debate that for quite some time, but there's no urgency to be a buyer here. Big crops have long tails and so forth, so that's our, that's the concern here, the base is getting wider.
Curt Kimmel:As a company, we've kind of recommend, if you get a decent basis, take it, do some cash replacement trying to get your house in order going in this fall so you don't pull up at the elevator and say, closed, full, so we don't want that, I don't know. I think if the harvest is strung out enough, we'll be okay on finding a home. But the big unknown and the biggest concern is overnight news, tariff news or what could happen overseas. That's kind of the biggest concern here as we move forward is price movement. I think we'll have some type of low here this fall and see some recovery whether or not it recoup storage costs, we're fixing to find out, Todd.
Todd Gleason:Alright. Hey. Thank you very much, and I appreciate you filling in for Matt this afternoon.
Curt Kimmel:Very good. Nice visiting with you.
Todd Gleason:That is Kurt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net. In today's agricultural news, just one item I think you'll find this one of interest. The Environmental Protection Agency has announced a new action aimed at protecting farmers, truckers, and first responders from sudden power loss caused by deaf or diesel exhaust fluid systems. The new guidance was developed after listening to farmers' concerns and will allow for a more reasonable and flexible approach to deaf system warnings.
Todd Gleason:Even Scott Mason, the EPA's regional administrator to the South Central Region, was surprised at how quickly the announcement took place.
Scott Mason:I'm extremely proud to say that from that roundtable that we had in Oklahoma that we took this back to the administrator and to our office of air. They got to work. They started digging in and really looking at this and basically what's going to happen. And this is action that's going to take place now and down the road too. So it's the two for one in a sense.
Scott Mason:It's it's really going to benefit our ag sector.
Todd Gleason:Mason talks about the challenges farmers face from DEF system warnings.
Scott Mason:If the tractor that they're operating runs out of DEF or if the system sensor fails, it's programmed to automatically shut down or severely restrict power. Now it could literally strand them in the middle of a harvest, which happens all the time. That's one of the things we heard about at the roundtable. It's very frustrating for the ag community, and really the same goes for truckers too. Our first responders, we've even heard horrifying instances of that happening when there are ambulances, for instance, who are trying to transport a patient to the hospital and the vehicle slows down to a very slow mile per hour.
Scott Mason:So this affects any vehicle that uses diesel fuel. So as I mentioned, we're fixing the problem now.
Todd Gleason:And what does the EPA solution look like?
Scott Mason:We're going to be fixing it for the future. So what that looks like is for vehicles that people already own and that they're using and for those manufactured vehicle. We're salon road trucks must be engineered excited excited to avoid sudden and severe power loss after running out of death.
Todd Gleason:Well, the new guidance is designed for both older equipment and newer options. Well, You know the 50% tariffs imposed by president Trump on Brazilian imports are expected to bring some implications for agricultural trade between the two countries. While the measure was softened by hundreds of exemptions, including for several of Brazil's key agricultural exports to The United States, the policy still affects a wide range of goods and is likely to shift commercial dynamics across multiple sectors. Joanna Colucci, part of the PharmDoc team has written an article for the PharmDoc daily website that examines the scope of these tariffs. You can find it now at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu.
Todd Gleason:Look under authors for Joanna's name, Joanna Calusi. It focuses on agricultural products impacted and the potential consequence for producers, exporters, consumers in both countries. That was earlier in the month and then just this week, Joanna released a YouTube video from the PharmDoc site. You can find it at youtube.com/@pharmdoc.
Joana Colussi:First, let's put things into context. In 2024, Brazilian agriculture exports totaled $164,000,000,000. China was the top buyer, accounting for 30% of that total, followed by the European Union with 14% and The United States with 7%.
Todd Gleason:Even before the new tariffs were announced by the Trump administration, Calusi says Brazil had already started deepening its engagement and trade partnerships with the BRICS nations. BRICS or b r I c s stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In the last fifteen years China became Brazil's largest agricultural trading partner. In fact China is currently the leading importer of several major Brazilian agricultural and forestry products accounting for 73% of Brazil's soybean exports, 49% of cellulose or pulp, 46% of its beef exports, 33% for cotton, 29% for sugar, 19% for pork, 11% for poultry in just 2024. To counter this, president Trump included some 700 exemptions in his July 31 executive order, says Calusi.
Joana Colussi:However, other agricultural products remain fully subject to the 50% tariffs, such as coffee, beefy, tropical fruits like mango and papaya, Seafood and Cocoa. For products which are strong US markets, presence, the impact could be even more significant. Brazilian cough makes up 17% of export value to The US. Let's take cough as one example. Brazil is the world's largest cough exporter and a key supplier to The U.
Joana Colussi:S, accounting for 34% of America's total cough consumption. The US, in turn, is the largest coffee consumer in the world, importing 99% of its consumption. The coffee industry here supports about 2,000,000 jobs and generates over $300,000,000,000 for the economy. Exporters and importers warn that new tariffs could push up consumer prices and add pressure to inflation.
Todd Gleason:Meanwhile, Brazil has begun efforts to redirect some of its coffee exports traditionally sent to The US market, which is not an easy task. Brazilian coffee shipments are expected to increase in China driven by growing trade ties between the two countries, both members of the Brix Group. On July 30, China approved 183 new Brazilian coffee companies to begin exporting to its market. In 2024 Brazil exported four seventy two million kilograms of coffee to The United States, eight times more than the nearly 56,000,000 kilograms shipped to China. Coffee consumption is rising rapidly in China as young increasingly replace tea with higher caffeine options.
Todd Gleason:Then of course there is the beef trade, says the ag economist from the Ovi.
Joana Colussi:The beef sector faces its own challenges. Brazil's is the third largest supplier of beef to The US, after Australia and Canada. The US, meanwhile, is Brazil's second largest beef export market, taking about 8% of total shipments in 2024, second only to China's 46%. With the 50% tariffs in place, Brazilian meatpackers expect to lose at least $1,000,000,000 this year. Industry leaders say that no other market can easily replace The United States, given its high demand and premium prices paid.
Joana Colussi:Meanwhile, The United States could search more beef from Argentina or Australia, for example, but that could drive up prices for some products, like ground beef, adding even more to inflation. And this shift would not happen overnight since global beef production is not increased fast enough.
Todd Gleason:Calusi concludes in her PharmDoc Daily article that while US exemptions provided temporary relief to several key Brazilian sectors, The continued inclusion of agricultural products like coffee and beef, along with seafood under the 50% tariff rate, brings uncertainty for exporters and may disrupt established trade flows. She says for Brazil, the challenge lies in finding alternative markets capable of absorbing both the volume and the value traditionally met by US demand. For The United States, the risk of supply constraints and rising consumer prices, particularly for everyday staples like coffee and ground beef, could contribute to broader inflationary pressures. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media on this Thursday afternoon. Aren't the music as written, performed, produced, and courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer, Tim Gleason.
Todd Gleason:On this Thursday, let's check the global growing regions with the president and CEO of t storm weather. That's tstorm.net online, Mike Tanura. He's here now. Hi, Mike. Thanks for being with us again.
Todd Gleason:I appreciate it.
Mike Tannura:Always great being here, Todd. Thanks a lot for having me.
Todd Gleason:So tell me about this heat that's coming into the Midwest. What do you think it will mean?
Mike Tannura:Well, it'll be a lot warmer than normal over the next five to seven days. We'll see high temperatures in the mid nineties and lows only in the mid seventies for a pretty wide area. That's around five-ten degrees warmer than normal at one of the warmer times of the year. So that will have a bit of an effect on corn and soybean potential simply because those crops like cool weather this time of the year and this heat is going to push those crops along just a little bit over the next five to seven days. Now the big uncertainty regards when will this heat come to an end?
Mike Tannura:We do know that it will come to a rapid end at some point next week, but whether that's on Tuesday and Wednesday or Thursday, Friday, Saturday is the big wild card. Part of the reason for the uncertainty is that a little bit of the heat that's coming in is going to be influenced by what will be Hurricane Erin in the Western Atlantic Ocean. This system is developing today, and it will continue to develop into next week. It's going to ride northward along the East Coast as we move through next week. And more than likely, will stay offshore.
Mike Tannura:So we don't think this is going to be a large impact or have a large impact on The United States directly. But with the weather, it will help to enhance the heat in the Central US, especially with eastward extent into the Corn Belt and the Mid South. We need to keep an eye on that tide, but like I said, it's just a matter of exactly how long this lasts because once that hurricane gets out of here, temperatures are going to turn a lot cooler and will have highs only in the 70s and 80s and lows in the fifties and sixties starting up around one week from now.
Todd Gleason:Does any of this impact rainfall across the Midwest?
Mike Tannura:Well, the initial setup is favorable for nice thunderstorm clusters in the Northern Corn Belt. We'll start to see some of those tomorrow and more so Saturday and Sunday. And they should focus on the Eastern Dakotas through Minnesota and into Wisconsin. The big wildcard with that setup is that occasionally when you see this type of weather pattern, those thunderstorms will then dive southward at night and move into Iowa, Illinois, maybe even Michigan, and then the parts of Indiana. Now that is going to be a risk with this setup, but the more likely scenario is for the upper level high to be strong enough to keep those thunderstorms in the northern areas and for the hurricane in The Atlantic to also kind of combine with that high to further limit development further to the south.
Mike Tannura:Now the reason that's important is it hasn't really rained very much for the last two to three weeks in the Southern And Eastern Corn Belt and going all the way back into June in the Mid South. So while we've been talking about this super wet pattern across the Corn Belt that dominated June and into July and even into August, that's all kind of come to a screeching halt here in recent weeks. And so we do need to see some rain in these southern and eastern areas where dryness is quickly going to turn into a bit of a problem for soybeans in particular. So we don't think the rain chances are very good with this setup. That is what we need to watch because any improvement or deterioration in those rain chances will probably have an effect on how many soybeans we produce this year.
Todd Gleason:Hey, thank you much. I appreciate it.
Mike Tannura:Yeah, thank you Todd. I'll talk to you next week.
Todd Gleason:Yes indeed. Mike Tenoras with T Storm Weather, tstorm.net online. You may hear more from him on our website. You can do that at wilag.org, willag.0rg. Look for the closing market report.
Todd Gleason:You've been listening, of course, to Illinois public media on this Thursday afternoon. Don't forget our commodity week program will be up on that same website by about 06:00 this evening, probably sooner than that. Many of these radio stations will create over the weekend, and you can hear the whole of it tomorrow afternoon right here on Illinois Public Media's home station. The state fair in Springfield runs through Sunday of this week. Next week, the pro farmer crop tour kicks off on Sunday evening, and we'll be talking about that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday right here on the closing market report.
Todd Gleason:And the following week, the Farm Progress Show takes place in Decatur. I hope you'll come visit us at the University of Illinois tent just inside the main gate. And to the right or the south, you'll find the U of I tent. We'll have a schedule of what's up on stage, in the tent up on our website again at willag.org in the next seven to ten days. Thanks for being with us here.
Todd Gleason:I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleeson.
