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Aside from spot-June Chicago Mercantile Exchange hog futures, other contracts on Thursday sagged on profit taking following an 11-day winning streak, traders and analysts said. Slipping wholesale pork prices and unprofitable packer operating margins suggest CME hogs are close to topping out in the near term, they said. Thursday afternoon's mandatory wholesale pork price data, or cutout, calculated on a plant-delivered basis, was at $100.16 per hundredweight (cwt), down $1.10 from Wednesday,…
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U.S. grain futures fell on Thursday, with corn hitting a three-week low and soybeans down two per cent, as ideal growing conditions developing in the Midwest grain belt dampened bullish sentiment over tight old-crop supplies. Soybean futures posted their largest daily loss in about a month as investors sold off long positions and exited bull spreads that earlier this week lifted prices to the highest levels since November. "It's the idea that you have to feed the bull (market) and if we have…
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The federal and Saskatchewan governments are investing $1.25 million over five years in a new research chair -- to focus on breeding forages. The new chair's emphasis will be on "developing new forage varieties with improved yield,” Saskatchewan's Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said during the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association convention in Moose Jaw. Stewart said Saskatchewan livestock have to be fed a large part of the year, making forage research important. “It’s…
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Races will go on, but the horses can't leave, at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack due to a quarantine imposed at the site Wednesday for a serious strain of equine herpes (EHV-1). According to the Ontario Racing Commission (ORC), an unraced two-year-old horse was euthanized Monday after becoming "recumbent with a fever" and showing symptoms of a "potential neurological disease." A second horse also came down with fever, showed neurological signs and was moved Tuesday to the Ontario Veterinary…
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday his government would not be rushed into signing a free trade agreement with the European Union this week just to coincide with meetings he is holding with European leaders. Harper was speaking to reporters in London on the first leg of a European tour that will take him also to France and Ireland, which holds the European presidency, as well as to Northern Ireland, where he will attend a summit of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized…
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An agricultural dragnet has found no cases of unapproved genetically engineered wheat outside of a 123-acre field in Oregon after two months of an ongoing investigation, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday. The discovery of the wheat, not approved for cultivation anywhere in the world, shook the global market when it was announced on May 29. Some U.S. customers in Asia and Europe halted purchases or said they would test incoming wheat shipments for biotech grain. With the U.S.…
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U.S. corn futures fell 2.5 per cent for their largest decline in a month on Wednesday as the market was caught off guard when the government cut its production estimates less sharply than expected. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's monthly supply and demand report said farmers will harvest 14 billion bushels of corn. This would top the previous record by nearly a billion bushels and replenish global stockpiles diminished after last summer's drought. USDA reduced the estimate for corn…
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Chicago Mercantile Exchange hog futures on Wednesday notched their third straight day of hitting a two-year high, with planned U.S. July Fourth holiday cookouts boosting pork prices, traders and analysts said. And, they said, consumers are switching from expensive beef to relatively less-costly pork. Wednesday morning's mandatory wholesale pork price data, or cutout, calculated on a plant-delivered basis, was $101.33 per hundredweight (cwt), up $2.59 from Tuesday, according to the U.S.…
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The Canadian owner of the Sobeys grocery store chain is poised to make itself Canada's second-biggest grocer through a surprise takeover of Canada Safeway. Stellarton, N.S.-based Empire Co. announced Wednesday it has signed a deal with Safeway Inc. to buy all of Canada Safeway's assets for $5.8 billion plus "certain liabilities" through its Sobeys food retailing division -- which already operates the Sobeys, IGA, Thrifty Foods, FreshCo and Price Chopper chains, among others. The Safeway…
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised some analysts Wednesday by leaving seeded area estimates unchanged for all U.S. crops. Before the report, a poll of grain analysts by Reuters found expectations were for corn acres to drop 1.5 million acres and soybean acres to rise 700,000 due to seeding difficulties this spring. Over the past five years, USDA's June WASDE (World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates) report was left unchanged four out of five times. The exception was 2011, when…
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