and baxter black...perspective from t salesman's side. now for the news that moved the markets this week... it was a bumpy start to 2016 for major markets this week. including the dow jones industrial average trading at levels it hasn't seen since early october. helping to trigger the sell off-- fresh panic selling in the chinese stock market. that market seeing multiple days of 7 percent drops and suspended trading. usda also readjusting it's expectations for the chinese market. currently about 17 percent of all u.s. ag exports find their way to c cna. usda is now revising that down-- expecting the country's gdp to fall to roughly 6 percent. adding that in 2015 exports to china were

even further in the new year. oil prices also trickling lower during the week--dropping into the low 30's for the first time in 12 years. west texas intermediate and brent crude both down 12 percent in the first week of the year. analysts say it's likely prices could fall to 25 dollars a barrel. oil company stocks also feeling the pressure. while parts of brazil have seen decent rains in recent weeks, our reporting partners at pro-farmer say drought remains very serious issue in parts of brazil. the leading soybean state of mata grosso is very dry...however three quarters of mato grosso saw between 3 and 8 inches of rain in the last 10 days. while the center west district - which is brazils largest soybean region - has a rainfall deficit. it's about 60-percent of normal. traders in ccago are watching closely.

crop is in poor to very poor condition, so definitely some losses there."> meteorlogist say el nino appears to be past it's peak. longer range forecasts show rain returning to that parched region of brazil. a sign of the economic times, monsanto says it plans to eliminate another one thousasa jobs. its part of a cost-cutting plan n signed to deal wititfalling sales. first quarter numbers shsh sales off 22 percent. these new lay-offs will bring monsanto's planned cuts to 36-hundred jobs over the next two years. that's about 16-percent of its workforce. usda releasing its monthly condition report on winter wheat crops in the central plains. the range from 54 percent good to excellent in kansas up to 77 percent in oklahoma where record rainfall fell in december. the northern stretches were also in the low to mid-70's good to excellent. cattle feeder margins improved about 50 percent over the past two weeks according to the sterling marketing's profit tracker. producers are still assessing damages and losses

the texas panhandle. oklahoma state's livestock marketing specialist derrell peel l pects says feedlot performance will take a hit...but that regions's not alone. "perhaps more important or just as important across much of the center of the country, conditions are pretty wet and muddy. cattle are struggling in that, performance will be impacted. the direct impact on the mkt will be in terms of reduced weights on feedlot cattle." those are the headlines...meteorologist mike hoffman jojos us now with weather... mike it looks like places are going to be cold to start the week. that's absolutely right, clinton, especially if you live east of the continental divide--coldest air of the season coming for most of you. east of the continental divide though the drought monitor really isn't a big issue. there are a few pockets that you can see of areas that are slightly dry, but the worst areas continue to be much of california, western nevada, although that exceptional extreme area continues to shrink k d it will continue to shrink as we seeee more and more storm systems coming into the west coast and

of the coming week. so rain coming into northern california, western oregon, parts of washington, mountain snows obviously. stationary front dividing the milder air from the real cold stuff that's already gone down all the way through south flflida with that first cold front, some scattered snow showers northern and central appalachians, many parts of the great lakes, weak system diving into the northern plains, with some snow showers as well. that system then moving in through the northeast with more lake effect snow showers and some snow all the way down into the southern appalachians. that first storm coming into the west coast along the gulf coast with some rain showers. another storm on wednesday coming into the west coast, this one a little farther north. it still gets at least central and northern california with rains and mountain snows. by friday then, you can see multiple systems. you basically have t storm tracks-- onehrough the southern tier of states that comes out west. another one diving through the northern tier of states and into the northeast keeping it on the cold side. back in our next half hour with

come back, dustin johnson and greg hunt join me to discuss a bumpy week in global markets. stay with us.

we have dustin johnson with ag yield, and we also have gregg hunt who's a seasoned trader here, been watching markets a lot of years. gentlemen, we opened 2016 kind of in a bumpy fashion. what's going on there, dustin, if we want to take a look at it? >> sure. well, i think last time we talked on the show it was the same question. it's, how do we take this record number of unsold b bhels held in the bin and get to the spring

some point. you know, you come to after the first of the year and a lot of those contracts are paying commercial storage. you start to lock up the price on those. that could have been that latest farmer push more sales to raise that cash flow after r e first of the year. >> yeah, and we look kind of the macro economy, gregg, we're talking we saw china suspend trading a couple times this week. our markets here at home have one of the worst starts ever. where does that take us or what do you see there? >> well, look, you know, the chinese are doing a terrible job trying to micro manage the stock market and it looks like they took off these parameters here last night and they got chinese new year coming up here first week of february so, they got to clean this up and that and the world is, you know, at times, you know, some traders are taking it, you know, and that's why they're selling off

but probably more of the that is a domestic stock market. i think the bigger issue's not that stock market price action is really what the yuan has done, their yuan, and then the renminbi yuan on off shore. >> right. >> those are where the bigger concerns are because the chinese now have had to since they've been instituted in sdrs with the imf, now they're reserved currency, only about 2% takes place in their trading, but they've had to spin almost a trillion dollars to be able to fend their currency over the last six months, andfor that reason and the huge capital outflows that have been coming out of china for the last nine, ten months. >> yeah, we've seen quite a bit of restructuring. in fact usda lowering expectations of our ag exports to china next year. i mean this year falling

market and what are we seeing so far in exports? >> sure. exports are running behind the fiveyear average pace for both corn and soybeans, but as far as china's concerned the soybean side we're running about 100million bushels behind pace, and on the corn side even bigger. about 350million bushels behind where we need to beo >> wow. >> oto meet that 1.75billion bushels that the usda's projecting for export sales. and that, like you said, comes down to a lot of times currencies. . are no longer the lowcost producer because of our currency and because of our competition with these emerging market currencies like the real and the argentine peso. >> sure. as far as lowcost currencies or lowcost producer, that's something china's been struggling with. >> well, yes, and that's something the premier's got, you know, in their last congress, and what that whwh his biggest concern is this income trade gap. this

economy loses its international competitiveness but cannot make that leap to a higher wage economy. >> right. >> so really what his concern is over the next five years is because their wages have gone up the vietnams, bangladeshes, the world taking over textiles. >> sure. >> so they need to start creating stuff, start making stuff on their own instead of assemblytype jobs, and that's, you know, making that transition if you look back from world war ii, it's a very hard thing to do, and to keep it simple the country that did do it would be soh korea and the country let's just use as another example, brazil, who did not do it. >> right. >> so that's something that's going to have to be watched very carefully because china's in other words he's saying is china's hit

over the last ten years basically what's transpired here is this is just like the 17 or the 1870s, the 1890s in america.a. that tenyear period in china is a lot like that. >> so they're going to be struggling with that for a little bit. we're going to talk about the reports coming out just this next week from usda, and it could have some big repercussions for our markets. we'l'ldo that right after the break. we'll b bback with more u.s. farm report in just a minute. u.s. farm report sponsored by the enlist weed control system from dow agrosciences, combining the proven control of the new 2, 4d and glyphosate. take control of tough weeds like never before. [ break ] welcome back to u.s. farm report. dustin johnson,

you. let's talk about this usda report that comes out on tuesday this week. there's a lot of, i think, anticipation for this report after the last few years. >> oh, yeah, definitely. i would say arguably this is the second most important report of the year. it's the first stocks reporthat we're going to get after production, so we get a better idea of what was really grown this year besides what was estimated. >> does it matter at this point? >> you know, it definitely does. >> okay. >> you could have still a bushel or two swing. the average bushel range guess for corn is three from the high to low range, but what i found most interesting is that the highest guess for the corn carryout is only up 75million bushels from the decembebewasde in the u.s. there is an easy chance that we maybe out-produced it a little bit or we, you know, that usda starts to acknowledge what i talked about earlier about the slow export sales pace. maybe they start to be more aggressive on loweringngheir export sales estimate. if that's s e case

expected in stocks or in the ending carryout than they were expecting. >> what do you think, gregg, you agree? >> well, yeah, i agree. the market's saying, hey, when you have a market making new contract lows, i mean, what can you say. at least contract lows for that march contract. >> sure. >> that's the market signaling something, and then the last few days is typical evening up and jerking around until next tuesday, but it's something there that either there's more sorghum, the chinese have let sorghrum in up to now, but we'll see after the chinese new year if that happens, but somewhere along there. the government has recognizededhe sorghum program, that china's not going to be anywhere near they thought, and we're looking at tremendous competition now because taking the export taxes off of argentina. at least they have

higher their currency to move higher to move the beans, i guess. but that, there's something there and the hardest thing lately in this is the corn stocks, but i think the market is)trying to say that the corn stocks through milder winter, less feeding, exports wherever that we're trading, heading towards a 2billion ending carry. >> yeah. if we hit something like a 2billion ending carry and w wsee that we're gaining in the stocks, what's the repercussions for price here? i mean because everybody's kind of feeling like, oh, we're maybe in the lows, but, i mean, that's not a given. >> right. the twoyear contract low for the front month is 318 and a quarter, and that was at a time when the dollar was actually weaker than it is now and all these other currencies were as well, so o think that's a huge target if we start to get bigger than 2 billionbushel carryout. maybe

that level, but i just think that the idea that the lows are in, which has been widely spread around since october, you know, it is possible for corn to keep going lower. >> sure. go ahead. >> let me just make one e int too. look, all this stuff, all this stuff-- copper, iron, oil, everything that's flooded into china-- and all these trading houses around the world now have to consolidate. china's cofcos bought the rest of noble and then china chem^s trying to buy syngenta and we're seeing all this consolidation around the world, and we're seeing the shipping rates plummet. and the point is, is that these people are selling these things because they have to. >> right. >> not

relationship, and this is not the situation the farmer wants to put himself in position into. when you have to then you're going to start causing a downward spiral, and that will put a low end there, but that's going to be a brutal, painful experience that's going to put people out of business. >> yeah. >> that's what you got to realize. >> a lot to watch, especially in the global economy we live in now. we'll come back with your final thoughts in market now in just a minute. [

i would just say the most important thing to look out for is obviously the report, but lili i said before, what's a fair price for corn and soybeans right now? there's been a lot of rhetoric about poor growing conditions down in brazil, and i would say that we have to recognize there's still most analysts are expecting a record crop out of them, so don't get

is flush with grain and oil seeds right now, and that's not good for a country that's got a very strong currency. and it's very important to consider what your needs are going to be for cash flow now before you have to make the decision like you said earlier. >> gregg, what do you think? >> i tell you the only advice i give now i know this is kind of hard to do because american tv we don't cover international news like we used to kind of cover a lilile bit. we don't cover it at all anymore, but on the internet you really can find some great people's china daily. there's some great english language newspapers out of buenos aires. you got to really do not look at the dollar index. the dollar index is not really your enemy right now. you got to keep a close eye on what's going on with the russian ruble and the proxy with ukrainians, there's always in the rat holes and stay there, but the peso and argentina, the brazilian real and the chinese yuan. those are

okay, keep a close eye on it from a global perspective. thank you both for being here. we'll be back with john phipps in just a minute. receive a free trial ofofhe daily market letter and gain knowledge about current market conditions from the professionals at bower trading. view the markets like never before. go to bowertrading.com.

weather men and women in our lives that are --as john puts it-- gaining our trust about the future. john. if we couldn't complain about the weather, there would be a lot less conversation on the farms of america. it frustrates us not be have more control of the biggest factor in crop production. weather and markets are e aotic systems in the mathematical sense, and until recently, they have defied prediction efforts.

weather forecasts have quietly gotten much better. thanks to enormous leaps in computing power, ingeniuous new modeling techniques, and the ability to capture huge amounts of data in real time, forecasts are now vastly improved from just the turn of the century. the three day temperature forecast is extremely reliable, and while precipitation is much harder to predict, it too is improving at the same steady pace. on the whole, every decade adds one day to the high accuracy forecast range. this means the four-day forecast will be as accurate in 2025 as the three-day is now. this is no small achievement, but it has gone essentially unnoticed by everyone. we don't remember not being surprised by the forecast, and rapidly dial in the expectation that tomorrow and the next two days will be whatathe forecast shows. not only does this m me all our lives easier and more productive, the improvement in weather forecasts has had another powerful benefit. the

made it possible are helping us to tackle similar prediction problems. in fact, some of the black box trading on exchanges is based on lessons learned in the weatatr business. so i want to offer my congratulations and thanks to mike and his meteorology colleagues for this unheralded but substantial achievement. we may not like the forecast but we can certainly count on it. still to come in the next half hour of u.s. farm report.. meeting the candidates running for president of the nation's largest farm lobby. plus, baxter black and a propane powered 58' moline. we'll be right back. from the studios of

farm journal broadcast, this is u.s. farm report. welcome back to u-s farm report. i'm clinton griffiths. we have much more ahead this weekend. weather woe's....from blizzards to the west and flooding in the south--american producers have their hands full. picking a esident...farm bureau elections ararnext week. we have a candidate preview. super salesman...baxter black and perspective from the point of sale. and propane power--a 58' moline rolls through tractor

continue to be a concern in southern states as the remnants of record december rains roll down the mississippi. . ter levels increased almost 50 feet 100 miles southeast of st. louis, forcing locals to build flood gates. that prompted many farmers to sell grain and move machinery to higher ground. while the flood is a concern downstream, grand tower island, missouri farmer, eric doza says he was 'spared' from what could have been a massive e ood on his farm. this river should be o o the other side of those trees out there in it's bank. that's where it should be. usually during the spring, it's a slow rise, it may come quick. when i say quick, that's maybe a two week span. but flash flood on the mississippi? i've never seen it in my life. doza says this is the second time he's experienced high waters thth past growing season. he put some acres into prevent plant in 2015. meanwhile those same storms brought blizzard conditions christmas weekend to the southwest and

raisers association estimate four-thousand feedlot cattle died from the storm. another eight-thousand stocker cattle perished on the high plains. and as many 40-thousand head may still be missing. in texas, dairy cow losses may also hit 20-thousand head, which would match the estimated losses in new mexico. and that doesn't take production losses into consideration. we lost 6 tankers of milk. they couldn't pick up milk for about two days, so we were just dumping that milk down the drain. for milk loss, right nono milk is going for about 16 dollars for a hundred pounds of milk, and with 6 tankers that's about 80000 dollars just for milk loss, not including cow losses she says cows that did survive the storm will likely produce less...and could face health issues in the weeks ahead. parts of california were slammed with major el nino

jamming commutes. flash-flood warnings were issued for low-lying areas close to los angeles. heavy snows are also helping with snow pack--currently above historical averages. that's it for news...meteorologist mike hoffman joins us now with a longer look weather. mike we're seeing some colder air is that going to be a new pattern? clinton, it definitely looks that way. when you see a pattern like this and in fact there is rotation in this upper level vortex, some people call this the polar vortex and that rarely gets down into the united states, but it does bring the cold air southward and that's the situation we are going to start this week with. watch as we head through the week though. we will see little pieces of that cold air continuing to come southward. then we kind of see stuff developing back into the west and this is going to shoot some cold air into the western

but keepept cold in the rest o o the lower 48. here's my 30 day outlook for temperatures. i'm still going above normal, northern plains, northern rockies. it's very cold this time of year though all the time. o above normal is just slightly above. below normal through the southern tier of states and that's where the wet areas going to be as well. above normal rain fall and snow fall in those areas. below normal through the great lakes, back into the northern rockies. clinton?thanks mike. in washington policy-- the government rolls out new dietary guidelines. it's something that happens every five years. in the newest guidelines, there's less attention on sodium intake and cholesterol. i itead offering new advice on sugar consumption. and, it does not explicitly encourage consumers to eat less meat...something livestock oups were concerned about. "since 1980 we have reduced the external fat on our beef 81%. now the internal beef is less fat too and today we have 38 cuts that qualify as lean by the u.s. government." policy a big part of the american farm bureau mission. and next week--for the first time in 16 years, the american farm bureau federation will elect a new president to replace bob stallman. national reporter betsy jibben gives us a

president, bob stallman, is stepping down - opening the door for another to take his spot. now, four other candidates hope to fill his spot in representing all in american agriculture:candidate, zippy duvall, has deep roots in georgia's agricultural industry. the georgia farm bureau president is a lifelong dairy farmer, who now maintains a beef herd and broiler operation. he was first active in farm bureau during the '70s after his father encouraged him to get involved. "he encouraged me to manage time with my farm and also encouraged me to make a difference." duvall has been georgia farm bureua president since 2006, holding positions at the state and national level.he has a big focus on helping young farmers: "we worry about how we bring our young people back to the farm and how we transfer those farms to the next generation." part of that help includes focusing on farm policy. "now i hear about

air act and dangerous species and what that does." candidate, kevin rogers, has ties to the southwest. he's a fourth generation farmer from arizona. roger produces cotton, alfalfa, wheat, barley and corn with his relatives in the state. "it's nice the family is involved in agriculture still together."> rogers is a long-time member of the american farm bureau, serving as president for more than a decade. "i like to do a lot of different things. my plate is always changing and rotating." rogers hopes to continue the conversation about agriculture at the national level. "there's always someone out there to go educate, so education is a big part of it." "and willing to sit down with people you may disagree with on issues, leaderships in different areas, animal rights issues, issues with the epa." barry bushue's background stems from the pacific-northwest. he operates on a century-old farm

to vegetables to berries to the public and hosts events for the community. "right now with the growing population, with the need for diverse agriculture, oregon is very proud of its diverse agriculture. we raise over 230 commodities." he's been president of the oregon farm bureau since 1999 and vice president of american farm bureau since 2008- but has held roles in both the state and national level for much longer. "oregon exports about 80 percent of its ag crops. increased trade has increased dramatically. a state like oregon has signed meat and blueberry contracts, potato contracts, internationally contracts, much of that goes through the port of portland,"> he was also appointed by usda secretary tom vilsack to serve on a biotech advisory committee. " ge technology is one of many tools. it's a very valuable tool. it is not going to replace tools but it shouldn't be replaced with other tools either. " if elected for the top spot, bushue believes he will be effective in meeting challanges american farmers face. candidate don villwock is an advocate for agriculture in the hoosier state. he farms in southwest

and alfalfa. "agriculture is the largest industry in indiana. we're very proud fo that." villwock has held almost every position indiana farm bureau offers from county president-to district director -to vice president and president leading the state organization for over a decade from 2002 to 2016. villwock says it's important to energize the entire industry. "we really need an active membership to feel empowered to feel educated and feeling comfortable stepping forward with the issues that impact them." villwock beleives his experience in farm policy and diversified crop background makes him a good fit for president. "i think i have a good understanding of the diversity of this country, of our farmers and ranchers and the commodieis that they produce and challenges they face and challenges. i think we have a strong story to tell and one we can be very proud of." as one ag

opportunity to continue his work at the national level.to better farm policy and address issues facing the american farmer. reporting for u.s. farm report, i'm betsy jibben. thanks betsy. the vote is slated for tuesday...they'll also be setting the national policy agenda for the new year. up next customer support and humble pie from us and john phipps. "time

corrections edition. first, in a cruel twist of irony, just after i had talked about discussing geography more on customer

support, we made a slight cartographical error during the church salute. so i woke up to this tweet sunday morning from luke moser. luke-send me an address i the early bird gets the coffee mug. not only did we have a problem with spelling "mountain" many of you may be fafaliar with the actualalhapes of missouri and nebraska. of course, we apologize for the blunder. i could offer some legitimate e cuses like lack of adult supervision with tyne on maternity leave, the holiday rush during which ththshow was assembled, or a failure of our school system in teaching social studies. but really it was just

however, was that those of you who took the time to correct us, like luke, did so politely and with good humor.e appreciate that consideraon. in fact, i would suggest the 2016 might be a good time in our industry to cut the people around us a little extra slack. just like us at u-s farm report, many if not most in ag will be under extra pressure this year, and could take the consequences of our inevitable mistakes a little more seriously and personally. all of us appreciate others correcting our errors, but when pointed out in a positive manner, it will add less to our already considerable regret load. thank you all. finally, to those of you who asked, yes i do

age you're so happy to have hair, you worry less about what it's doing at any particular moment. thanks john. when we come back there's no mistaking baxter black and his fresh perspective on the cowboy way of life. sit tight we'll return in just a moment.

ies. it would pass out with a pucky and if everyone got lucky, it

enough to do a hundred critters. "these had better work," he said"they cost enough." "well i can gurantee you they will do it. i will come out and take you through it. you just follow the directions for the stuff." well, i drove out and found the farmer nearly finished, but the scene i saw sent shivers up my spine. was the a-i tech invited? had the farmer grown near sighted? because a crowd had gathered behind the cows behind. in the middle, wearing goggles and a slicker, smeared with green affluent, like he had hit the fan, dressed in pre-composted splendor, poised and ready to rear end er, stood the farmer

asked with trepidation. "well, thisisothersome cow is more than id ah thought. this procedure don't impress her." i said, "try a tongue depressor." but i knew that all his work had been for not. so i watched him put the bolus...i can't say it. my commission check was going up in smoke. i was going to take a skinning and then the whole crew started grinning and i realized they had staged it as a joke. well, they got me. at the office when i told the boss my story he got livid, said i botched the sale. "now we will have to go re-do em'. what the heck did you

tail." this is baxter black from back there.thanks baxter. quite the job--you can find more whit and wisdom from baxter at baxterblack dot com. when we come back, al pell joins us for tractor tales and our country church salute... next week...we start a new monthly special report. a look at the machinery market with greg peterson--you may know him as machinery pete. we'll kick the series off at an auction in london ohio. machinery insight you won't wa to miss--next week as we go on the road with machinery pete. u.s. farm report is brought to

you by corvus, propane-e-wered minneapolis moline. this model gb is one of

during a visit to the big sky state. we farmed with two of these. and back when we were doing that, propane was only like 14 cents a gallon. we liked them really well. my uncle bought this one brand new. i have another one that bought second hand. and we did have a third one that i traded off. this one i did a restoration on. it really didn't need a lot. just a few dings and a paint job and clean up. we farmed with some gas burners a few years back. and we switched over this propane with cheaper to run and less valve problems and it somewhat more power too. it was always debatable with the deisel guys. these were rated a little more power than the deisel but the deisel guys always thought the deisel were a little better,

crop front or else the tricycle type front end on them. and they usually got the adjustable axel for the rear wheels too. move em in and out. and we had a dealer over in hopson a near by town. heheold a lot of these right in this area. the same tractor. there were a few case propanes but a lot of mini propanes and really not on any other brand of propane here.thanks jim. today's country church salute goes to...the finnish apostolic lutheran church in embmbrass, minnesota. it's the oldest existing church in the community....built in 1906...just a year after the town was incorporated. the community is largely of finnish heritage. in fact, in the early days of the church before it was affiliated with an american sin-id, sacraments were sanctioned in finland. today, the church is open for tours and services are still held on

their story. as always we want to learn about your home church as well... salutes can be sent to the address on the screen. stay with us - cropwatch is next. welcome back to u-s rm report. mike we're seeing

half of the country this week. that's right clinton. in fact alvin berning sent this photo to our facebook page. he lives on the western edge of the state in shelby country near indiana. alvin says his wheat field isn't covered in snow and temperatures dipped down to 8 degrees the monrning he snapped this photo. doug whitney also sending a photograph to our facebook page. he's from roswell new mexico. its not little green men but white snow that's been sticking around since the day after christmas. he says fortunately he's not dealing with cattle this year...he really feels for the thousands of head lost over

jackson county iowa posting a couple of pictures from the cab of his tractor. . says the frozenenround is helping them catch up a bit--they've been able to get out and do some vertical tillage even with snow on the ground. and finally take a look at this - i don't think cold will bother sheila the sheep, lost for six years in the australian wilderness she disappeared in a dense forest near hobart in the tasmania state back in 2010. sheila was scued by local man who found her on the side of a road. now freshly shorn, the wool weighing in at roughly 46 pounds. while impressive it's well short of the australian fleece record which was nearly twice that amount. as always, we want to hear from you, send comments, photo'o'even video to mailbag-at-u-s-farm-report-dot-c om or post it to our facebook page or twitter. mike final thoughts on the week ahead? well, once we get this snow storm out of the way for the middle of the country and the great lakes,

whole week though. just a really quick shot of cold air. just a really quick shot of cold air. alright thanks.for tyne, john, al and mike, i'm clinton griffiths. thank you for watching u-s farm report. and thanyou for letting me stand in while tyne has been on leave-- rumor has it she'll be back in the chair next week. thanks again and have a great

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