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As harvest nears, Machinery Pete is also watching tillage trends. Small use tillage equipment prices are strong, whereas sales of larger equipment have been challenging. “If you’re looking at buying a 60-foot field cultivator, I’ve been seeing those values starting to hold,” he said.
Fires continue to rage in the Northwest portion of the country. New numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show the cost of fighting wildfires topped $2 billion in 2017, a new record. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is using the new figure to stress the need to revalue the budget of U.S. Forest Service, which falls under USDA’s umbrella.
Commodity analysts live by the mantra “Big crops only get bigger,” and that appears to be the case in 2017. USDA boosted corn, soybean and cotton yields as well as production numbers this week. The revised numbers came in above the average trade guess and larger than August’s crop production numbers. Despite the report initially sending bearish waves through the markets, grain prices turned a corn mid-week, posting green on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Jim Bower of Bower Trading is deeming 2017 as a “very unusual year” on U.S. Farm Report this weekend, while Standard Grain’s Joe Vaclavik says this is typically what happens as harvest heats up.
AgLaunch365 is a farm-centric program that will assist in field trials and attracting investments for ag startups.