The USDA’s June Hogs and Pigs report places the June 1 inventory of all hogs and pigs at 74.5 million head, up 0.22% from last quarter and 1.27% higher than a year ago. Likewise, market hog inventories are up 0.25% from last quarter and 1.68% higher than a year ago. This price series is forecast to average $92.61/cwt for the 3rd quarter of 2024, falling to $77.24/cwt by the 4th quarter and $77.36/cwt for the 1st quarter of 2025, before rising to $88.83/cwt for the 2nd quarter of 2025.

California’s In-Use Locomotive Regulation establishes new requirements and standards for locomotives that operate in the state, which, if authorized, could have economic implications beyond the state’s borders and negatively impact agricultural producers that rely on rail transport, particularly those in the Midwest. This article examines those potential impacts, which include increased transportation costs and shifts in logistic strategies.

Current options-implied price distributions for 2024 new-crop corn and soybeans reveal that the range of expected price outcomes has narrowed more quickly in 2024 than in recent years. This market trend suggests a more bearish outlook compared to previous years, with implications for farmers’ marketing decisions as the likelihood of a significant growing-season rally in new-crop futures is shrinking.

The rate of increase in the nominal (i.e. not adjusted for inflation) cost of US labor has been increasing since 2015. It is higher now than at any time since the late 1980s. Moreover, no long-term upward trend exists in US labor productivity. Caution is thus in order when speculating that the increasing cost of US labor is a temporary event and that artificial intelligence will increase US labor productivity and dampen its cost.

In this farmdoc daily article, we present revisions to the 2024 Crop Budgets for Illinois, highlighting changes from our January release for high-productivity farmland in central Illinois while discussing the more general trends across regions. We have revised corn and soybean prices down, while cost adjustments were mixed. Farmer return projections for corn are improved across regions, while soybean return expectations are improved for southern Illinois but similar or lower for other regions.

Recently, media reports have shown that consumers are frustrated by food manufacturer responses to increased food prices, including ‘shrinkflation’, and ‘skimpflation’. Finding effective ways to manage higher input costs without affecting demand or profit margins is top of mind for many food manufacturers. We utilize results from the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey to investigate consumer preferences for how a food manufacturer might respond to increased input costs.