Sep 22 | Closing Market Report
From the land to Grant University in Urbana Champaign, Illinois, this is the closing market reported as the September 2025. It's the fortieth anniversary of Farm Aid. That concert took place right here on this campus in 1985. We'll get into the way back machine today, not to 1985. While I was at the concert, I was also a student at the time.
Speaker 1:We'll go back to 1993 instead and hear from the concert that was held in Ames, Iowa. You're likely to hear some common political notes that still infuse agriculture. We'll also today, of course, talk with Kurt Kimmel from agmarket.net about the commodity markets and hear from Mark Russo at Aberstream Analytics about the agricultural weather forecast on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. This public radio for the farming world online on demand at willag.0rg.
Speaker 2:Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Speaker 1:December corn for the day settled at $4.21 and 3 quarters, down 2 and quarter. The March at $4.38 and three quarters, 2 and a half lower, and May corn at $4.48 and a half, down 2 and a half cents. November soybeans, $10.11, down 14 and a half a bushel. January, $10.30 and a half, 14 and a quarter lower, and the March soybeans at $10.47, down thirteen and three quarters. Bean meal down $4 for the day.
Speaker 1:The bean oil, 86¢ lower. Weed futures in the soft red. December at $5, ten and three quarters down eleven and three quarters of a cent. The hard red December at $5.00 2 and a quarter, a nickel lower for the day. Live cattle futures at $2.40, 22 and a half, $4.50 higher.
Speaker 1:Feeder cattle at $359.90 per 100 pounds, up $8.97 and a half cents, and lean hogs at $88.75, a dollar 12 and a half higher. Crude oil at $62.31, that's 10¢ lower for the day. Diesel fuel at $2.28 and 6¢ around, 700 slower, and the gasoline at a dollar 91 and 7 tenths of a cent. That's just about unchanged on the afternoon. Here to talk about these numbers is Kurt Kimmel.
Speaker 1:He is with agmarket.net. Hello, Kurt. Thank you for being with us. Remind me, did we have a cattle on feed report that came out on Friday? I feel like that might have been the case.
Speaker 3:It seems a while back, but, yes, on feed as expected, 99%. Place 90%, the average trade guess was 91.3, and markings 86, and average trade guess was 87. I think I know fairly close to, being in line, just continue to look at, less numbers than a year ago. When you look at the monthly slaughter rate, we're seeing less, coming to the plant to be processed. And so it was kind of in a situation where the beef market was looking at a seasonal downtrend as demand kinda slows in through here, but not so fast.
Speaker 3:We we saw a little positive news here Friday, then technically we've got momentum to the upside. Then two, I'm not quite for sure if the news that along the Mexican US border within 70 miles of US border, we they are finding cases of the screwworm, which kind of indicates that they probably will not open the border anytime soon. There was ideas once we moved in October, maybe there was a chance but now maybe first a year. So it's going to keep beef supplies tight but then too it's going to keep strong demand for corn to Mexico as these feeders and fats there need something to eat, and we did see a sale of 320,000 tons of corn to Mexico, announced this morning, Todd.
Speaker 1:So that you would have thought a little bit might have lifted the market. It was kinda steady through the overnight trade for corn and then followed soybeans lower. Tell me about how the trade ensued through the day and what happened with the bean market first.
Speaker 3:Well, for the first day of fall, I don't know if it's a sign of the trend to continue or maybe getting some of the news out of the way. But the bean market basically was looking at some follow through from Trump and the Chinese premier not really coming up with anything concrete on agricultural products, know, it's more tick tock, tick tock. Well, the thing is, it is tick tock, tick tock for the grain market because we are missing out on some sales here as we move forward. The idea is they can meet to the site here on October 31, I think it's going to be a trick. But anyway, as we move into next year, 2026, supposedly more solid get together and commitments, but boy, all of a sudden you get into next year, we're looking at the Southern Hemisphere being the main supermarket for the soybean complex.
Speaker 3:That along with news that Argentina supported export tax on grains until October 31, should out, accelerate some sales here as they wanna bring in some revenue into their country. I would imagine a lot of the grains already spoken for since most of the world's, seems like most of world's been going to that supermarket to buy some inventories. But at the end of the day, man, corn down just 2¢, it feels like it closed higher, particular beans down 14, wheat down 10 to 11. I think the corn market is trying to find some solid footing on corn, the 50% retracement back down to the low there is four eleven and a half. We're at twenty one and three quarters so if we can't hold here they might try to visit that.
Speaker 3:Soybeans though, when you look at some retracement levels, ten, twelve and a quarter, 62% back down to the early September low. So, we're kinda floating for a little danger here where beans might wanna test the $10 benchmark.
Speaker 1:Well, the corn, finished above $4.20, as you said, felt a whole lot like a big win for it today. Tonight and tomorrow will be interesting to watch, and, really, it is about looking forward to the combines rolling, and that's gonna happen fairly quickly in a big part of the Midwest. We'll know what's going on in Iowa. What have you heard as it's related to yields?
Speaker 3:Oh, just continues to be highly variable. You know, it just depends on your location. You know, there's just a wide range. It's amazing. I thought guys tell me going down the road, you see a 30 bushel difference.
Speaker 3:Was talking, visiting with a guy today and he said there's 50 bushels difference between one in the field to the next. So it's more of a situation where I think you look at the big picture, there's no record yields everywhere. So we're gonna continue to be on an assumption that corn yield is gonna come down on the next report. The thing is on the beans, anything from the southern third of Illinois or southern half Illinois has received some rain in through here. So once they dry out, there's gonna be a lot of beans come to town here.
Speaker 3:And for the northern part in through here, hopefully get a little moisture to get away, add some moisture, get away from this 9% bean number on moisture.
Speaker 1:Are the farmers busy and concerned in the field or are they still calling you about what they should do as it's related to green and oilseeds that need to go across the scale?
Speaker 3:Today there was a little light volume, just the fact that my mark is down. So, the biggest thing was today on a producer conversation, if you're in a situation where you could have received Friday's price on some of these contracts going on, there was quite a few guys taking advantage of moving some grain and taking, Friday's price.
Speaker 1:Alright. Hey. Thank you much. I appreciate it. We'll look forward to talking with you again in a week.
Speaker 3:Very good. Take care, Todd.
Speaker 1:That's Kurt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net, joined us on this September 2025. It was forty years ago, by the way, on this date that the first Farm Aid concert took place at Memorial Stadium right here in Urbana Champaign. I was a senior at the University of Illinois and was just looking at my concert ticket stub, $17.50 for the Farm Aid concert. What a deal it seems like today.
Speaker 1:We'll have more on that concert and others in a moment. Forty years ago today, one of my best friends in college and I, Joe Brown, walked across his campus to the very first Pharmaid concert that took place in Memorial Stadium. Little did I know that I would be reporting on Farm Aid often over the next forty years and really that not much of the rhetoric would change. I thought we'd get in the way back machine today and go back to not 1985 when the first Farm Aid concert was held because I didn't report on it. I was there to enjoy that concert.
Speaker 1:However, I was in Indianapolis in the nineteen nineties and in Ames, Iowa in 1993.
Speaker 4:The Clinton administration has been singled out by farm groups and entertainers attending last weekend's Farm Aid concert in Ames, Iowa. They say people voted for Bill Clinton because he represented change. And now three months into his term, they say he is the status quo of agricultural policy. Last Saturday, entertainer Neil Young laid the politics as usual. Blame squarely on the shoulders of the president.
Speaker 5:Farm aid is not an American tradition. It's a band aid. We gotta get rid of it. We
Speaker 3:want more from Washington.
Speaker 4:Neil Young summed it up best for the participants of farm aid, entertainers, farmers alike who have been struggling for the last eight years to get Washington to recognize the problems they see in the farm sector. They want more from Washington, and until now thought President Clinton was going to bring about change in the countryside. Iowa farmer Gary Lamb says they have been sorely disappointed and laid out prescription to heal the American economy.
Speaker 6:This whole process last year, the election was about a demand for change. We're all hearing about how we need to encourage investment in America, how we need real economic development, how we need to create jobs, how we need revenue enhancement, maybe without raising taxes, and how we need to lower the cost of the farm bill. One very simple thing would do all of those. Raising commodity prices for America's farmers and ranchers in the marketplace. That would do it all.
Speaker 4:Lamb and Young and a dozen other participants filed into the press tent on the grounds of Iowa State University's Cyclone Stadium Saturday morning like a jury ready to return a verdict on a man they just convicted. Seated in two tiers, entertainers like Neil Young and Willie Nelson espouse the political rhetoric of the farmers they have chosen to surround themselves with. More than a dozen participants speaking on behalf of American farmers, but representing the more activist segment of US farm organizations. Groups like the American Agriculture Movement, the National Farmers Organization, and the National Family Farm Coalition. People like Jim Hightower, a member of the populist movement and former Texas agriculture commissioner.
Speaker 4:Hightower says the government's actions have forced farmers off their land by the thousands.
Speaker 2:The hell of it in this country is that our own government is the one supporting the farm depression and the farm crisis today. I think our problem up in Washington is we've got too many 10 gallon hats sitting on half pint heads up there, if you know what I mean. Other governments support their family farmers. Our government supports those who farm our family farmers. Talking about the processors and the shippers and the retailers.
Speaker 2:They hold down the prices that our farmers get and raise the prices that consumers have to pay. So we have the phenomenon of a consumer going in and spending this dollar bill and only this little quarter getting back to the family farmer.
Speaker 4:Hightower holds up an orange box for illustration to the network cameras from CBS, NBC and CNN. It is a breakfast cereal. He says the price of a box of Wheaties has gone up 111% since 1981. The price of wheat has gone up 29%. He smiles as he tells the crowd of reporters and farmers the orange box costs more than what the farmer received for his part of its contents.
Speaker 4:The box costs a dime. The wheat in the box? About 3¢. The consumer pays $2.19 for a box of Wheaties. Hightower says the 10 and a half million dollars Farm Aid collected and distributed to financially strapped farmers in the last eight years is a fine short term solution, but the organization's long term work is essential to the health of the farm community.
Speaker 2:Their effort not just to do the hotlines, not just to do the crisis centers, as important as that is, but their long term effort in policy development and grassroots organizing, building that coalition that Chuck was talking about between working people, between farmers, between environmentalists, between consumers that develops a new farm policy that is for farmers, for consumers, for environmentalists, for workers. You can't make butter without a churn. Ross Perot, wish he had said that, but he didn't. Farm Aid is the churn that's gonna get us a new farm policy that works for people instead of conglomerates. Thank you
Speaker 1:very much.
Speaker 7:Will continue our efforts to affect policies which will make this vision a reality. Farm Aid is honored to be able to provide the sound and stage system for all Americans really, for the growers and the eaters. To express their vision for a brighter future, a future based on thriving family farms and communities and industries which they support.
Speaker 4:These farm groups, the American Agriculture Movement, the National Farmers Organization, and the National Family Farm Coalition, and entertainers like Neil Young and Willie Nelson want Washington to artificially support the prices farmers receive for their goods. They say it will make America a better place to live.
Speaker 8:If you make it profitable for the guy who want to get up early in the morning for daylight, milk cows, and plow all day long, and, go to bed dead tired, if you make it profitable for him to do that, there are still some people in this country who will do it. There ain't many. There ain't many because it's damn hard work and I've done it and playing the guitar is a heck of a lot easier. But I do admire and respect the man who works that hard for not only little money, but no money these days. He does it all year long and at the end of the year he winds up in the hole.
Speaker 8:And, this is not right. This is the first citizen. This is the family farmer who is the bottom rung on the economic ladder. If you if you screw this guy, you've you've you've heard everybody above him, all the way up to General Motors.
Speaker 4:Other farm organizations disagree with Willie Nelson and the political rhetoric Farm Aid is playing for Washington. Groups like the nation's largest farm organization, the American Farm Bureau Federation, say, give us a level playing field, a free market without the distortions of artificially supported farm prices, and we will produce efficiently enough to stay in business. But the United Auto Workers, Chuck Gifford says it is not survival of the fittest that concerns farm aid. It is keeping farmers where they think they should be, on the land. And
Speaker 5:I saw a young couple stand up on the seat of a corn planter and ask people not to bid at a farm sale. And when he got done, the sheriff turned to the young couple and said, are you through? And the farmer's wife said, yes. I guess we are. He turned to the auctioneer and said, let the bidding begin.
Speaker 4:I'm Todd Gleason.
Speaker 2:Joining willing are his friends and the friends of the family farmers all over this country. Neil Young,
Speaker 1:That report was produced in April 1993 from the Iowa State University campus, the first Farm Aid concert took place on this date in 1985 from the University Of Illinois Memorial Stadium, and the fortieth anniversary concert took place this weekend from the University of Minnesota. You're listening to the closing market report from Illinois Public Media on this Monday afternoon. Do visit our website at willag.org, willag.0rg. There you'll find information from the agricultural economist, the crop scientist, and the animal scientist right here on the Urbana Champaign campus of the U of I, and you can listen to our daily agricultural programming on demand. You can also find us a podcast.
Speaker 1:Just search out the closing market report in your favorite podcast applications. Our theme music is written, performed, produced in courtesy of Logan County, Illinois farmer, Tim Gleason. The weather is next. Let's turn our attention now to the weather forecast with Mark Russo. He's at Everestreem Analytics.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Mark, for being with us. What a change we've had in the weather, at least in our part of the world, where it has been dry for the most of the month of August and a lot of the month of September, but October is coming in a whole lot wet wetter, at least the September is, and maybe October. What can you tell me about this rainfall we've gotten?
Speaker 9:Yeah. With the rains that started over the weekend, they're gonna continue throughout much of this week. And so as a result here, yeah, causing some localized harvest delays, but also beginning to at least stabilize river levels, even few areas in around the confluence of the Cairo and Mississippi River, I should see an improvement in river levels due to the amount of rain here coming up this week. After that, though, it does look like a drier pattern will return to the Midwest. So as we approach October 1 and into the first week or so of October, it looks like this drier and continued warmer pattern is going to be in place.
Speaker 9:So this week's rains looks pretty short in duration versus a total pattern change that would last for, you weeks on end.
Speaker 1:Is that a drier pattern across the whole of the Corn Belt?
Speaker 9:It does look that way. Both Western Belt, Eastern Belt as well. It's it's it's pretty widespread.
Speaker 1:So that causes me to ask about the first frost freeze events. I wanna say, like, October 12, maybe the freeze event that comes in North Dakota. I can't remember whether that's the actual date or in that range, But dry weather can oftentimes leave the skies open at night, and if there's no wind, things can drop really quickly. Any concerns about cold weather coming into the Corn Belt?
Speaker 9:Not at this time, Todd. The pattern over the next two to even three weeks looks continued warmer than normal. And as a result, do not see any, you know, early freeze threats or even yeah. As we get in early October without a freeze, then that'll start to be that's more of kind of a normal normal date, and that that could push the first freeze here even later.
Speaker 1:Wow. So it looks like a good open harvest across the Corn Belt. Mhmm. Things should move quickly. And if people wanna leave the corn out or the soybeans, be able to let them dry down low, I think dry down's probably not gonna be an issue for lots of places at this point.
Speaker 1:I suppose we should turn our attention to South America. What have you been watching there?
Speaker 9:Yeah. We've been watching a good start to the rainy season and ultimately planting season for soybeans across Mato Grosso. Just in the past week to ten days, there's been an increase in rain activity, which is pretty timely for this point in the new season. Coming up, there's gonna be some more rains in and around Mato Grosso here this week, further boosting soil moisture. However, it does look like drier weather will return to the region next week.
Speaker 9:At this time, we don't see that dryness being long in duration, but rather just being temporary. Only about like a week, maybe week and a half, but that looks about it. So and if anything, with next week's drier weather, you know, following this improvement in soil moisture, that could allow for some pretty rapid planting progress for soybeans next week.
Speaker 1:Do we have any concerns about La Nina or El Nino developing? I don't recall which one is in place. I think it's La Nina at this time.
Speaker 9:Yeah. Yeah. We've seen the development of La Nina just now at very weak levels, and that's gonna continue. Maybe we reach borderline weak to moderate levels coming up later in November and December. But, you know, for this fall here in The US and for now the up the new growing season in South America, it's going to be influenced by La Nina.
Speaker 9:And that's something to watch here from a risk standpoint. It's Argentina and Far Southern Brazil that at times can have, you know, dryness issues and heat issues during La Nina growing seasons. You know, it's too early to put any specifics on, you know, the heart of this season, but certainly that's gonna be something important to watch in the coming months.
Speaker 1:Are those places set up well at this point with moisture for the beginning of the growing season as well?
Speaker 9:They are. We've seen improvement in rain activity and ultimately normal to even above normal soil moisture as it stands right now across much of Argentina and Southern Brazil. Certainly no early moisture concerns. The question becomes later if we do get into a drier and warmer mode, does that then really begin the process of depleting soil moisture to concerning levels?
Speaker 1:Thank you much. We'll talk with you again next week.
Speaker 3:You're welcome, Todd.
Speaker 1:That is Mark Russo. He is with Adverse Dream Analytics, joined us on this Monday edition of the closing market report that came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world online on demand at w illag dot org. For University of Illinois Extension, I'm Todd Gleason.
