April 16, 2025
CoBank: Tariffs Compounding Economic Anxiety
A new report from CoBank says rapidly worsening expectations about everything from inflation to personal income to business conditions and labor supplies are elevating economic concerns. The question of whether the declining expectations will translate into slower spending and tightening profit margins will likely come into view by late June. Uncertainty over trade and biofuel policy pulled corn, soybean, and wheat prices down last quarter despite the weaker U.S. dollar. Trade concerns weighed heaviest on wheat as world buyers have multiple suppliers available. Crop production expenses are expected to continue trending lower, but they remain elevated in relation to lower commodity prices. Also, renewable diesel and biodiesel production has scaled back to find stability in the absence of the blender’s tax credit, pushing prices above petroleum. Record high prices for beef cattle remain across the sector despite continuing herd liquidation. The U.S. pork sector is positioned for moderate growth this year.
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Commerce Department to Reinstate Tariffs on Mexican Tomatoes
The U.S. Department of Commerce intends to withdraw from the 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico. Termination of the agreement will be in 90 days. The Commerce Department says the agreement failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports. Commerce has been flooded with comments from American producers urging the agreement’s termination. This action will allow U.S. growers to compete fairly in the marketplace. When the agreement terminates, the Commerce Department will institute an anti-dumping duty order on July 14, 2025, resulting in duties of 21 percent on most imports of tomatoes from Mexico. Commerce maintains 734 antidumping and countervailing duty orders, which provide relief to American companies and industries impacted by unfair trade. Antidumping and countervailing duty orders provide American businesses and workers with a mechanism to seek relief from the harmful effects of the unfair pricing of imports into the U.S.
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Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Reorganized
Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the cancelation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. Following a thorough line-by-line review of each of the Biden-era partnerships, it became clear that the majority of these projects had sky-high administration fees, which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers. Select projects may continue if it is demonstrated that a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers. USDA says it’s reformed and overhauled the Biden-era Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Initiative into the Advancing Markets for Producers Initiative. “The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs and not American farmers,” Rollins said. “Farmers’ concerns took a back seat during the Biden administration, and we are correcting the mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for unprecedented prosperity.”
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Legislation Would Expand Access to Meat and Poultry
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a member of the Senate Ag Committee, joined Mike Rounds (R-SD) in reintroducing the “New Markets for State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Act.” The bipartisan legislation would allow meat and poultry products inspected by state Meat and Poultry Inspection Programs to be sold across state lines. Currently, meat and poultry products inspected by those state programs are limited to markets within the same state, even though inspection at a state facility meets or exceeds federal inspection standards. More than half the states – 29, in total – have their own inspection programs. “Iowa produces some of the best meat and poultry in the world, and high-quality products that have already passed a rigorous inspection process shouldn’t require any extra inspection to sell across state lines,” Grassley said. “Our commonsense legislation would remove this regulatory overreach and provide consumers with more options at their local meat counter.”
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BLM May Face More Lawsuits
The Interior Department may see more lawsuits after announcing it would no longer require the Bureau of Land Management to create an environmental impact statement for more than 3,200 oil and gas leases in seven states. The Biden administration started work on the review four days before President Trump took office in January. E and E News says the review was the “culmination” of almost a decade’s worth of lawsuits on federal leases that date back to the Obama administration. The leases cover 3.5 million acres across Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The Center for Biological Diversity says the work done by the Bureau to guard against the environmental effects of oil and gas production on federal lands has been “weak.” Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate for the Center, says the Interior Department’s decision to walk back the environmental impact statement is likely illegal.
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Corn and Wheat Inspections Climb Higher
The USDA says inspections of corn and wheat were higher, while soybean assessments declined during the week ending on April 10. Corn inspections rose week to week, increasing to 1.83 million metric tons, up from 1.61 million tons a week earlier and 1.36 million during the same week last year. Examinations for overseas delivery rose to 604,000 metric tons from just over 355,000 tons the prior week and 620,000 at the same point last year. Soybean inspections dropped to 546,300 metric tons from 814,300 tons the previous week. That’s higher than the 447,550 tons assessed during the same week in 2024. Wheat inspections since the start of the marketing year are now at 18.3 million metric tons, up from 16 million at this point a year ago. Since the start of their respective marketing years, USDA has inspected 37.5 million metric tons of corn and 42.1 million metric tons of soybeans.
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