Julie Ingwersen

Archived crop and livestock reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture were set to transfer to a new government website on Wednesday with the agency's existing online archive, hosted by Cornell University's Mann Library, decommissioned, the USDA and a Cornell official said on Tuesday.

High levels of fungal disease are lurking in corn fields across the U.S. Midwest, threatening to reduce yields of a record-large crop and cause headaches for farmers during the autumn harvest, growers and crop experts said.

In a head-to-head contest in a small corner of agricultural futures markets, a legacy spring wheat contract that has traded for more than 140 years is fending off a challenge from a competing contract launched this spring by CME Group, the world's largest futures exchange.

Analysts voiced concerns this week about the integrity of U.S. Department of Agriculture reports after the agency delayed a report and excluded findings that point to tariffs as a reason for a forecasted increase in the agricultural trade deficit, according to Reuters interviews with four analysts.

Farmers in the U.S. plan to plant more corn and fewer soybeans this spring than they did last year, hoping to eke out a profit and shield themselves from U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs, growers and analysts said.

CME Group said on Wednesday it plans to launch spring wheat futures and options in the coming months that will compete directly with a historic Minneapolis market now owned by Miami International Holdings.

U.S. farmers are harvesting two of the largest corn and soybean crops in history at the fastest pace in years, straining their physical capabilities and their grain storage capacity.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Co is idling its only soybean processing plant in Iowa for weeks in the thick of a record U.S. harvest, the grain merchant told Reuters, tightening supplies of soymeal fed to livestock.

A Biden administration drive to increase U.S. wheat plantings after the Ukraine war is faltering as wheat prices hover around four-year lows and exportable supplies continue to flow from the Black Sea region, curbing demand for American grain.

U.S. farmers are about halfway done planting winter wheat for harvest in 2024, but acreage is expected to remain stable or decrease from last year because of lower prices and farmers’ disenchantment with the crop after three years of drought.