Dec 09 | Closing Market Report

- Naomi Blohm, TotalFarmMarketing.com
- Farmer Aid Package a Bridge or a Cliff
- Joe Janzen on the December WASDE
- Don Day, DayWeather.com

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Creators and Guests

Host

Todd E. Gleason🎙🇺🇸

University of Illinois

What is Closing Market Report?

Celebrating 40 Years | 10,000 Episodes
Established 1985

The Closing Market Report airs weekdays at 2:06pm central on WILL AM580, Urbana. University of Illinois Extension Farm Broadcaster Todd Gleason hosts the program. Each day he asks commodity analysts about the trade in Chicago, delves deep into the global growing regions weather, and talks with ag economists, entomologists, agronomists, and others involved in agriculture at the farm and industry level.

website: willag.org
twitter: @commodityweek

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Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report as the ninth day of December, 2025. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Naomi Blohm; she’s of TotalFarmMarketing.com. A bit later in the program, Joe Janzen, agricultural economist from the University of Illinois, will join us. Both will take up this morning's December World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates released by the United States Department of Agriculture. Along the way, we'll hear a weather forecast from Don Day at Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And we'll discuss yesterday's Trump administration announcement of some $11 billion in farmer aid to come by the end of the month of February. We'll have both the President and the Secretary of Agriculture along with some reaction from Jonathan Coppess, University of Illinois Agricultural Policy Specialist. It is a really good set of farm policy issues; you'll want to stay with us right here on Illinois Public Media to hear more at willag.org. That's W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G.

Todd Gleason services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.

Todd Gleason: Naomi Blohm from TotalFarmMarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin now joins us to take a look at the marketplace. Hi Naomi, you and I are talking early because I have a meeting in the one o'clock hour when we normally would talk. Prices have actually moved some—not much—from the USDA report released at 11:00 AM this morning. It didn't change very many things. What did it change in the corn, soybeans, and or wheat World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates S&D tables that you found of interest?

Naomi Blohm: Well, the only major change that affects US markets primarily would be the increase of demand for corn for exports. And this was largely expected, so that's why the corn market isn't really responding too much so far today. Corn exports on the November report were pegged at 3.075 billion bushels, and now the USDA raised it to 3.2 billion bushels. So we know that the pace of US export inspections has been fantastic, and the USDA acknowledged that again today. There were no changes to production for corn, and the ending stocks now are pegged at 2.02 billion bushels down from 2.15.

And looking at the wheat market and the soybean market, there were no changes at all on the US supply and demand balance sheets; ending stocks were unchanged. And I feel like that's part of the reason why corn and wheat today [are] just trading very lackluster, still trapped in our sideways trading patterns. The beans are trading eight cents lower on the lack of fresh news. It feels more like technical trading is continuing and that head and shoulders formation on the daily charts trying to come to fruition. We got about another 15 to 20 cents lower yet to go and then we can get down to the 100-day moving average, which is going to be pretty good support and also maybe fill that gap. And I have a hunt that once we get down there, China's going to show up and do some buying. So it might still be an exciting week depending on how quickly the bean price can get down to that downside objective and then we'll see if China shows up or not.

Todd Gleason: Are you of a mind that once this happens, if this takes place the way you're thinking about it, that we will have a lower high as it rebounds than we did last time? Or that we will make a bigger trip into the $11, possibly $12 range that some had talked about?

Naomi Blohm: I think that we'll be able to see the soybean market get right back up to where we were just a few weeks ago. And looking back at the past 11 years for the March soybean contract, whenever the market can find a Thanksgiving low for soybeans—and sometimes that's late November, sometimes it's early December; last year it was the middle of December—but between that Thanksgiving low and Christmas or even the New Year timeframe, the average rally for soybeans over the past 11 years has been 88 cents. So yeah, I do think that there's going to be a snap back higher of prices, but first we have to hit that downside objective and we need China to show up and buy to make this whole thing potentially come together from a seasonal perspective and a technical perspective like I think it might be able to do.

Todd Gleason: Less fear today than there was a week ago about the size of the soybean crop in Brazil, meaning that there was some dry weather there, that there was some worry that that crop might get smaller. I take it that USDA didn't think that was much of a difference this week. It still remains at what, 175 million metric tons?

Naomi Blohm: Yes, that's right. There were no changes today for Brazil soybean production; they kept it at 175. And there were no changes for Argentina soybean production, keeping it at 48.5. But what we did notice is that on the global ending stock balance sheet, ending stocks were increased just slightly up to 122.37 from 121.99 last month. And then the other thing to be aware of is that there were no changes for the Chinese number for the amount of soybeans that they need to import. USDA kept that number at 112 million metric tons. So today's report pretty lackluster, but that's normal for the December WASDE.

Todd Gleason: Thanks much. We'll talk with you again next week.

Naomi Blohm: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That's Naomi Blohm. She is with TotalFarmMarketing.com out of West Bend, Wisconsin, joined us on this Tuesday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media online at willag.org. Where right now you can still sign up for the Farm Assets Conference coming up Friday at the AgriCenter in Bloomington and the Illinois Farm Economic Summits that are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week. They'll be held in DeKalb, Peoria, and Mt. Vernon.

Yesterday, President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers. He spent about an hour with members of the cabinet, including Brooke Rollins, US Secretary of Agriculture, discussing the aid, but as usual, he veered off into other subjects, including the Chinese purchases of US soybeans.

Donald Trump: China committed to over $40 billion of soybean purchases. And that's a commitment. And I asked President Xi if he could even up it. And I think he’ll do that. I mean, he... not a commitment... the 40 billion is a commitment. But the soybean farmers are quite happy. Since my successful meeting in South Korea with President Xi, purchases have been made and soybeans are being exported out of the United States to China as we speak. And I say that... our soybeans... I told this to President Xi. Our soybeans are more nutritious than competitors. Somebody said, "Is that a Trump statement or is that real?" Fact, you know who asked me that question? President Xi asked me that question. He said, "Really? I had never heard of it." And he was a food purchaser for a long time. But that's what I hear.

Todd Gleason: He may have heard that, but soybeans are a commodity and frankly there is no difference between a commodity soybean from one country to the next. They're just isn't by design as it's related to the CME Group and the way they're purchased and sold. Speaking of that, the $40 billion number was the first time that one has been heard, at least by me. I did some calculations to see what that meant. It does pencil out to about the total number of million metric tons at $13 a bushel landed in China that that nation is expected to buy this year and the following three years—12 million metric tons this year and then 25 million metric tons in each of the three succeeding calendar years. Mr. Trump clearly has been talking to farmers because he's also picked up some of their lingo like this exchange.

Donald Trump: You leave the farm to your children and a lot of farms are... you know, sort of cash poor... land rich, cash poor. And the kids would go to the local bank or to any bank and they'd borrow money to pay the estate tax and they'd end up losing the farm. They go bankrupt.

Todd Gleason: If you grew up on a farm, you certainly heard that phrase: "land rich and cash poor." Now let's turn our attention to the $12 billion in aid that US farmers are expected to get. Actually, the number is $11 billion as Brooke Rollins told those in attendance.

Brooke Rollins: As the President said, we are very pleased to announce that today we are going to be effectuating an $11 billion trade... well not trade, but bridge payment to our farmers. The money will move by February 28th of 2026. But by the end of this month, so just in the next couple of weeks, every farmer that is able to apply for it will know exactly what that number looks like. So as you are going to your lender, as you are working to ensure and understanding what you can plant for next year, you will have that number in hand. And we will continue to talk to our farmers, continue to understand exactly what this looks like and what is necessary.

Donald Trump: It's 12 billion.

Brooke Rollins: Well, we're holding 1 billion back. So today we are announcing 11 billion. We are holding 1 billion back just to ensure that we are covering... so today's announcement covers all of our row crops, all of our row crops, but some specialty crops and others that we are still working with to best understand where they are in the farm economy and ensure that we're making every forward-moving position that we need to. And then finally, as we move to this new golden age for agriculture and for rural America, as we continue to fight for these farmers and ranchers—their way of life and those that are represented here represent hundreds of thousands of farmers across this country—just know that this President... I have never been around anyone who every time we talk, he asks, "How are my farmers?" Every single time. So we will never stop fighting. We will make sure that we're doing everything we can to ensure the next 250 years is just as bright, if not brighter, than the last. So thank you so much.

Donald Trump: Thank you, Brooke. Thank you. And this money would not be possible without tariffs. The tariffs are taking in, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars. And we're giving some up to the farmers because they were mistreated by other countries for, I don't know, maybe right reasons, maybe wrong reasons. They weren't... they were trying to show us something. And it would... it's really worked out really well. But because of the tariffs...

Todd Gleason: Bit of semantics, but you did hear Mr. Trump suggest that the tariffs, or the income from tariffs into the United States Treasury, would fund the assistance to farmers. Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, clarified to reporters after the event that the funding would come from the Commodity Credit Corporation. That's the same vehicle the Trump administration used to fund trade assistance during his first term. Those dollars are allocated by Congress.

We're now joined by policy expert from the University of Illinois, Jonathan Coppess, to discuss the farmer aid package that was announced by the Trump administration yesterday. Some $11 billion to be delivered to mostly row crop producers, but all kinds of producers across the United States, by the end of February. They often in the administration discuss this as a bridge, sometimes as a bridge to a golden era. What is Washington D.C. telling you about this bridge and really the definition of it?

Jonathan Coppess: I don't know if I can answer in terms of what Washington is telling anybody at this point. I think there's, um, there's still questions out there. But I think what we're seeing is—and this is, uh, this should sound kind of stunning to people when we think about what the term "bridge" means here—because the bridge, as I understand it, is effectively the bridge is something from the $10 billion in ECAP payments made this spring to the estimated $13.5 billion dollars that ARC and PLC to make next fall. But those, as we all know, those program payments are delayed for the marketing year.

And I guess we're bridging over the fact that the tariff and trade conflict with China is not delivering necessarily the results that have been announced or proclaimed or hoped for. But honestly, I think this whole thing raises enormous questions and concerns, um, that we will not be bridging over by throwing more payments at problems that are going to be around for a while now.

Todd Gleason: What are your questions and concerns?

Jonathan Coppess: So the single biggest question I have is: are we paying farmers to go off a cliff? Because if we've lost the Chinese soybean market, we need to make some serious adjustments in agriculture. And payments tied to planted acres, particularly being made as we go into the spring planting decisions, could end up having us plant a whole lot of acres that we don't have market for. And these payments are not going to fix that. These payments are not going to help that. The second set of questions are, if part of the justification once again for these policy changes are increased input costs, are these payments only feeding increased input costs and not helping farmers adjust the cost side of these equations? So we're again putting them in a squeeze and the payments are temporary. And these squeeze... this squeeze may be lasting longer.

So I think the question here is, Golden Era or not of agriculture, what are we doing and what are we... [sighs] what are we setting farmers up for? Because I'm worried that the after-effects of these things—the tariff conflict with China, the fact that we're just making payments on top of payments on top of payments and all we hear is that these payments certainly aren't solving anything if we have to have more payments and more bridges and more payments and bridges to payments... We've reached a level here that I think a lot of us should be really concerned about the direction we're taking and the outcomes that we're going to put farmers in, right? These are very useful if you're running around Washington demanding payments and you can say in winter meetings "I got you more payments." These are not useful if your budget is stretched and your input costs are inflated because of this and the markets aren't going to be there next fall when you got to sell a crop.

Todd Gleason: Jonathan Coppess is a policy specialist with the farmdoc team. He will be on the road at the winter meeting season. If you'd like to see him in person, you can do that at the Farm Assets Conference at the AgriCenter on Friday. Sign up, register today at willag.org or during the Illinois Farm Economic Summits in DeKalb, Peoria, and Mt. Vernon on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. Again, registration is $100 at willag.org.

We're now joined by Joe Janzen, agricultural economist on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the U of I to discuss the December World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. These are the S&D tables not only for the United States but for the world. We're going to deal with the United States. There weren't very many changes, in fact none, in the soybean numbers. Corn number did change; 125 million extra bushels were added to the export figure. What does that bring it to and why do you suppose it happened?

Joe Janzen: Yeah, so we're looking at an incredibly strong year for US corn exports. Now 3.2 billion bushels of corn exports estimated for this marketing year '25-'26. That's a really strong pace. It kind of—the adjustment that USDA made—kind of checks out with where we're at in terms of corn exports thus far. We're well ahead of last year's pace and the number basically reflects, you know, the increase that we've already seen in terms of export sales this year. So that's kind of the good news in the report. Nothing else really changed on the corn balance sheet. So obviously that meant that, you know, it looks like corn supplies are getting tighter in the United States, but I think we've got to think about what other changes might be made to this balance sheet as we look forward into the new year.

Todd Gleason: What kinds of changes might be reflected in the future do you suppose?

Joe Janzen: Yeah, so a couple of things. I think a lot of people are expecting that when USDA and the National Ag Statistics Service reconciles their final production numbers for 2025, we're going to see a lower... a smaller, slightly smaller corn crop than is currently on the books. So that's part of it. And then I think the other part is lower US feed use. You know, a lot of US feed use would be to feed animals that we bring across from Mexico into the United States. Those animals aren't coming across due to some of the trade restrictions in that sector. And so we're going to see, you know, I would think lower feeding numbers. USDA has projected a very healthy increase in cattle feeding for the... for this marketing year that I don't think is playing out in terms of the numbers we're seeing in the Cattle on Feed report and other reports of the livestock sector.

Todd Gleason: Do you suppose that those changes, if the feed residual number is actually lowered, if the yield also is lower, would offset to some extent the exports that have been increased and leave us in that 2 billion bushel carryout range?

Joe Janzen: That's kind of, yeah, where my default thinking lies thus far. I mean, we could... you know, something else could change in the time between now and then—we've got a month until that January report—but I would kind of expect that we're going to see, you know, a roughly 2 billion bushel carryout. And that's what's keeping corn prices, you know, in spite of all the good news on the export front, we really have not seen a lot of action in the futures market. A little bit of tightening in terms of both basis and spreads, but nothing that would suggest this corn market is expected to pop off here anytime soon.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much.

Joe Janzen: Thank you, Todd.

Todd Gleason: Joe Janzen is an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois. He too, like Jonathan Coppess, will join us on the Illinois Farm Economic Summits series as well as at the Farm Assets Conference. Again, those are coming up Friday of this week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. You can find all the details online at willag.org or under the events section at farmdocdaily.illinois.edu.

Let's turn our attention to the weather forecast. Don Day is here from Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Don, I am tired of moving snow already. And we haven't even begun actual winter, just meteorological winter at this point. We haven't gotten to the shortest day of the year yet. What's it look like over the next week in the United States?

Don Day: Well, I tell you, for the northern plains and the far northern Rockies and Canada into the Great Lakes and New England, it's just more of the same, probably for another six days or so. We have a pipeline of very cold... and when I mean cold Canadian air, it's even cold by their standards. We may see overnight low temperatures Thursday morning in the Northwest Territories and Southeast Alaska going past 50 to 55 degrees below zero. That is 20 to 25 degrees below average. So if you're saying, "Well, that's Canada anyway," well it's even cold for them. And that air has had easy access into the northern plains, Great Lakes, and the northwest Corn Belt, probably through Monday or Tuesday of next week.

And you've probably heard the term Alberta Clipper. We'll continue to see little surges of moisture with that Arctic air producing light to moderate snows from the northern plains into the northern and northwest Corn Belt and Great Lakes through that same period.

Todd Gleason: Okay, so what are the things that are setting us up for this really cold air and for these Alberta Clippers to come in? I feel like there's again, we've talked about this, the warming in the atmosphere in the polar regions, but also there's an awful lot of rainfall to the west of you on the other side of the mountains.

Don Day: Right. You know, there's a lot going on this winter that we haven't had over the last couple of winters. And a lot of the big drivers, you mentioned it, is the stratospheric warming events. We've had two already. And those stratospheric warming events do make the lower latitudes colder. And to have two already by the middle part of December here is probably a harbinger of more to come. A lot of that has to do with other stratospheric things that happen, such as the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation that happens in the stratosphere [at] the equator. It goes through phases about every two and a half years and we're currently changing phases into one that is known to be colder for North America in the winter. So there's some structural things that are favoring a colder winter season. And, you know, one thing we're watching is the accumulation of snow that's happening in the northern plains and the northern Great Lakes because this time of year with that low sun angle, that kind of acts as a refrigerator. Even when we get warming trends, that snow cover will affect temperatures.

Todd Gleason: Will we have a warming trend anytime soon?

Don Day: We do see one. If things come together as we're expecting as we get into next week and into Christmas week, we may see a little bit of a flip of the script to the colder more stormy weather more towards the West Coast and Rockies, which would then change the wind direction. Instead of that pipeline from Northwest Canada, at least temporarily, we would get more of a wind flow from the southern plains which would bring us moderating temperatures. But again over those snow fields that we're building on up, those temperatures won't be as warm as they would have been without the snow cover.

Todd Gleason: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Don Day: Thank you.

Todd Gleason: That's Don Day. He is with Day Weather in Cheyenne, Wyoming, joined us on this Tuesday 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 willag.org. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.