Trump Gets NAFTA Warning and USDA's Wheat Estimates
From the Ag Information Network, I'm Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.**With farmers among his strongest supporters, President Trump is not immune to warnings about threats to pull out of NAFTA and rewrite other trade agreements.
Hours before Mr. Trump spoke at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Nashville, president Zippy Duvall tells Agriculture.com "Without those global markets, our already-depressed farm economy would go down even more."
Duvall says about half of what we produce goes to foreign markets, generating about 20% of U.S. farm income.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/ag-trade-is-vital-says-farm-bureau-leader-a-day-before-trump-speech
**For weeks, most wheat watchers assumed that 2018 winter wheat plantings would be down significantly from last year. The market was ready for bullish wheat numbers from Friday's onslaught of data from USDA.
While winter wheat plantings were, indeed, down, it wasn't nearly as much as expected. USDA projected hard red winter was, as expected, down the most at 23.1 million acres, 700-thosuand less than last year but 800-thousand above the estimate. Soft red was surprisingly higher at 5.98 million, 370-thoiusand higher than last year and 430-thousand more than the average estimate. White winter wheat was pegged at 3.56 million, up 140-thousand over last year and 130-thosuand more than estimates.
https://www.agriculture.com/markets/analysis/us-harvested-wheat-acres-seen-different-than-usdas-planted-estimate
**Monsanto has announced updates on advancements made across its research and development pipeline over the past year.
A record number of projects advanced phases across the company's five R&D platforms: data science, plant breeding, plant biotechnology, crop protection and ag biologicals.
This marks the fifth consecutive year that more than 20 projects advanced in the pipeline.
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/114511