World Agrinews

U.S. producers are expected to reduce plantings of the variety of wheat used to make pastries and snack foods by 18% to 20% from last year due to weather delays and weak cash prices. Last year, producers planted about 8.3 million acres of the variety, soft red winter wheat, which is grown in the central third of the country. Total winter wheat seedings last year were about 43.3 million acres. This year, wet weather that has slowed the U.S. corn and soy harvests has delayed SRW wheat planting. Many producers seed SRW wheat after soybeans in the Midwest and South but could not plant wheat until the soybeans were harvested and the ground dried up.

Concern about fungal disease in corn has rippled through both the corn and soymeal futures markets late this week, but on the ground those ripples might not extend beyond parts of the northeast corn belt.

Asurvey of local lenders conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City finds that farmland values in the central Plains/western Corn Belt held steady during the third quarter of the year, despite falling farm income and weaker agricultural credit conditions.

Cattle futures fell to the lowest level in five weeks as wholesale-beef prices slipped, signaling consumers may be slowing purchases as the economy slumps. Hogs also dropped.