File photo of the facade of the U.S. Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. (Camrocker/iStock/Getty Images)

CBOT weekly outlook: Bullish USDA report lifts grain markets

MarketsFarm — The bulls were off and running Thursday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its monthly supply/demand estimates, which showed underwhelming grain production and ending stock figures for the 2022-23 marketing year. U.S. corn production was estimated at 13.73 billion bushels, 192 million below the lower end of trade expectations despite a […] Read more



Jim and Karen Taphorn hoped their son would take over their Kansas farm. He tried but plunging grain prices forced him out and the Taphorns decided to retire and sell their equipment at an auction in February.

Trade war and sagging prices push out U.S. farmers

A decade ago, young people were flocking back to the farm — but now they, and their parents, are leaving

A decade ago, young people were flocking back to the farm — but now they, and their parents, are leaving

Reading Time: 5 minutes Shuffling across his frozen fields, farmer Jim Taphorn hunched his shoulders against the wind and squinted at the auctioneer standing next to his tractors. After a fifth harvest with low grain prices, made worse last fall by the U.S.-China trade war, the 68-year-old and his family were calling it quits. Farming also was taking a physical toll […] Read more


This illustration shows how CRISPR-Cas9 technology could be used to genomically edit a species of the streptococcus bacterium. The Cas9 nuclease protein (in blue) uses a guide RNA sequence (purple) to cut DNA (green) at a complementary site.

Where are the Canadian genome-editing startups?

Looser regulations give the U.S. an edge in GE product development, but Canadians are working on gene editing, too

Reading Time: 4 minutes Genome editing has made some major strides in the past year. Minnesota-based Calyxt struck a deal with a processor to make oil from its GE soybeans, in which the genes responsible for trans fats have been ‘turned off.’ And SU Canola (a sulfonyurea herbicide-resistant variety) was given its Canadian commercial release a year ago by […] Read more

Is it time to shift the power from agricultural pricing based on USDA data to Canadian data?

Data is too important to be left in the hands of others

Canada relies on the U.S for critical agricultural data, and that leaves us extraordinarily vulnerable

Reading Time: 3 minutes Vulnerability is a word that I have taken to heart a lot in the past few years. We are vulnerable when we change, or seek change; vulnerable when we are left open to volatile weather or markets; and in agriculture, we are extraordinarily vulnerable when we are without data. The partial shutdown of the U.S. […] Read more