Soybeans

[gregpet]

Anyone look at overnite soybeans. Down hard.

[LWeber]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/26/swine.flu/index.html

Meat consumption will be impacted in the short term.

[Fransisco]

Canola's down pretty good too so far. Will be interesting to see where the overnights close and where things go tomorrow.

[boarderbloke]

It's not surprising that there would be fear in the trade regarding hog consumption and associated feed, there is profit to take and better to get it off the table. The truth is that this flu IS NOT in HOGS, and is not being transfered to hog producers. The virus merely has a stain in it, that is similar to swine.
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1240605539296.xml

Will this be a temporary down turn or a complete collapse in prices for beans and canola? One thing though, if the down turn in prices is related to lower meal disposition, then canola should have the advantage due to a higher oil yield per tonne crushed. Will global veggie oil prices drop, or will the crush margins just keep getting larger?

[Fransisco]

Wheat is down pretty good as well. Oat's is also down but not as aggressively.

Hog futures are down, but they were trending down anyways, the downward pace hasn't accelerated, so far we're still in the same channel as the last couple of weeks.

[silverback]

How many high yielding canola areas have their canola seeded yet?

When will it get in?

It is winter in central Ab - again or still.

[Kodiak]

The Stock Market indices are also taking it on the chin in a big way, and give how soybeans in particular have been a big follower for the last 12 months, this is likely not helping.

One thing is certain. Markets for commodities, and for paper, will trade perception - in the short term at least. Whether, or when, they return to the direction and to levels based on their own fundamentals is a big question. The sooner the better.

[Kodiak]

DJ Swine Flu Outbreak To Impact US Grain Prices Short Term
11:31 PM, April 26, 2009
By Gary Wulf

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


CENTRAL CITY, Neb. (Dow Jones)--The U.S. swine flu outbreak could sicken the
U.S. cash grain market if many other nations follow the lead of Russia, which
Sunday banned pork imports from nearly a dozen U.S. states in reaction to the
growing international health crisis.

"The initial reaction to the swine flu fears is bearish, but the longer-term
sustainability of such negative implications lack merit," said Duane Lowry,
market analyst for early Market News Inc.

In 2008, the U.S. exported more than 2 billion pounds of pork; which at a
standard swine feed-conversion ratio of four-one, is roughly equivalent to 106
million bushels of corn and 43.5 million bushels of soybeans.

Russia was the fifth-largest export market for U.S. pork in 2008, taking
almost 10% of all U.S. shipments, valued at around $476 million.

The Philippines, Thailand and Jordan, which purchased more than $50 million
of U.S. pork last year, also cut off pork imports over the weekend after the
U.S. government declared a public health emergency to stem the spread of a
heretofore unknown strain of Mexican swine flu.

The virus, thought to be a unique mix of bird, swine and human genetics with
the potential to cause a global pandemic, has killed 86 people in Mexico and
has been confirmed in the U.S. and Canada.

The World Health Organization Sunday reiterated that properly cooked pork
won't transmit the disease to humans, but consumers have all but eliminated
poultry and beef from their diets during past outbreaks of avian flu and mad
cow disease despite similar assurances. Such reactions almost immediately
impacted market prices, livestock production - and ultimately grain
consumption.

Last year, U.S. lean hog futures nearly dropped by their daily allowable
limit of $3 per hundredweight after Moscow banned meat imports from just four
U.S. pork plants after Russian inspectors claimed they found the antibiotic
tetracycline in some shipments.

The first confirmed case of U.S. bovine spongiform encephalopathy - reported
just prior to Christmas Day of 2003 - produced an almost limit-down move in
U.S. corn prices, pushing prices to a 5-week low. However, prices did recover
all of the losses by New Year's Day.

With that template as a potential guide to market movements, Lowry said he
the current swine flu scare may impact short-term price movements, but in the
longer term, demand fundamentals will kick in.

"The reality is that any pig on the ground now will eat, and no producers
will make long-term production decisions based on the current swine flu
hysteria," he said. "There is no merit in the argument that corn should be
bearish on swine flu, but that doesn't prevent the masses from trading that
fear initially."

U.S. corn and soybean futures have shed both shed value in overnight Globex
trading at the Chicago Board of Trade, falling 3.3% and 4.2%, respectively, at
0425 GMT.


-By Gary Wulf; Dow Jones Newswires;

[Kodiak]

An opportunity, say about Tuesday, to buy back previous sales?? Anyone brave enough?

[Kodiak]

I know it looks like I'm talking to myself, but this morning (8:00AM MDT) it looks like the panic may already be subsiding. Stock markets have already made a recovery, gold is slightly down, currencies are yawning. Financials have cooled down.

I'm going to see if I can catch the falling soybean knife I'll let you know how much blood I lose!

[charliep]

Likely an over reaction.

A fear I have heard expressed is the impact of a pandemic on logistics and processing. What would happen to agriculture/other industries if 25 percent of the workforce or more is home sick or looking after family members?

[jensend]

this is what makes markets nervous. not so much this one outbreak that so far is not causing serious illness in the usa but the fact that some food production systems may not be up to snuff. i'm sure part of smithfield's reasoning in setting up in mexico is the more lax regulations for health and environment making for lower costs.


from ranchers.net:


The outbreak of a new flu strain—a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses—has infected 1000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels.

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site—a level nearly equal to Smithfield’s total U.S. hog production.

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.
From what I can tell, the possible link to Smithfield has not been reported in the U.S. press. Searches of Google News and the websites of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all came up empty. The link is being made in the Mexican media, however. “Granjas Carroll, causa de epidemia en La Gloria,” declared a headline in the Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha. No need to translate that, except to point out that La Gloria is the village where the outbreak seems to have started. Judging from the article, Mexican authorities treat hog CAFOs with just as much if not more indulgence than their peers north of the border, to the detriment of surrounding communities and the general public health. Get this:

De acuerdo con uno de los habitantes de la comunidad, Eli Ferrer Cortés, los desechos fecales y orgánicos que produce Granjas Carroll no son tratados adecuadamente, lo que genera contaminación del agua y del viento en la region.
My rough translation: According to one community resident, the organic and fecal waste produced by Granjas Carrol isn’t adequately treated, creating water and air pollution in the region. I witnessed—and smelled—the same thing in Hardin County, Iowa, a couple of years ago, another area marked by intensive industrial hog production. The article goes on to say that area residents have long complained of “fetid odors” in the air and water, and swarms of flies hovering around waste lagoons. Like their counterparts who live in CAFO-heavy U.S. areas, they also complain of respiratory ailments. Now, with 30 percent of the area’s residents now infected with the virulent flu bug, people are demanding that state and federal authorities inspect hog operations there. So far, reports La Marcha, the response has been: nada.

The Mexico City daily La Jornada has also made the link. According to the newspaper, the Mexican health agency IMSS has acknowledged that the orginal carrier for the flu could be the “clouds of flies” that multiply in the Smithfield subsidiary’s manure lagoons.

[agstar77]

hat most are forgetting that in the Northern hemisphere, epidemics are more serious in winter when people congregate indoors. Another buying opportunity for the not so timid.

[Burbert]

Relax and chill, enjoy watching the Americans squirm for a change. They did a number on us a while ago, painting us with Ontario sars and Western bse. Oppurtunity knocks for Kanadian hog producers. Lets pick up the slack. After all ag depends on someones crop failing and ours being available, get it while the gettin is good. US hog flu is good for Kanadians!!!

[charliep]

A long ways from soybeans to pigs but here is a good article called:

Swine Flu: What Pork Producers Need to Know

http://www.agweb.com/get_article.aspx?pageid=150626