Weekly Crop Commentary - 01/03/2025

Haylee VanScoy
Director of Grain Purchasing

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s! Wishing you all a safe and prosperous 2025.

Grain markets are facing headwinds as we close out the week. Old crop CH25 corn reached six-month highs yesterday, finding resistance at $4.60 before sliding lower today. For SH25 beans, soy oil had been leading the soy complex the last couple of weeks; however, weak export sales, a strong U.S. dollar, and limited fundamental demand have pushed beans back below the $10.00 mark today. Many farmers have been active sellers at these levels over the last week, but I have a feeling we may remain range-bound until next week’s January WASDE report provides fresh direction.

As we prepare for the 2025 season, Heritage is here to support you every step of the way—from building a grain marketing plan and exploring contract options to setting target offers and more. Reach out to your local merchandiser today! We’re also excited to introduce new tools that will be available through our Heritage Portal in the coming months. This platform is designed to streamline your grain, agronomy, and energy business while delivering valuable insights for your operation right at your fingertips. We appreciate your continued partnership and look forward to a successful year ahead!

Lou Baughman
Grain Merchandiser, Kenton (Region 1)

Old Man Winter woke up and he’s finally putting some white stuff on the ground. Temperatures are dropping so the snow will hang around for a bit. Markets have rallied a little over the holiday and today is pulling back. Next Friday will be an extensive USDA report including, crop production, grain stocks, and winter wheat seeding numbers. Everyone is looking forward to seeing the results next week.

Steve Bricher
Grain Merchandiser, Urbana (Region 3)

Welcome to 2025. We have turned the calendar on last year and are looking forward to 2025. The year forward is going to be full of challenges in the farming industry.

I know this is going to surprise most but on January 2nd, 2023 cash corn at Urbana was 4.19. Yesterday we were 4.36. This is the highest corn prices we have seen since October of 2023. I am not saying you need to sell all your old corn today, but I would keep pricing into the rally. New crop corn is a different story. You could have contracted 2024 harvest corn at 4.50 a year ago, today we are 3.85 for 2025 harvest. The market has work to do.  I am still in the camp that DP corn needs to be priced. I don’t see any reason that we would gain 10 cents per month over the next few months.

Soybeans are an entirely different story. A year ago, cash soybeans were 12.28, today we are at 9.87. The prospects for soybean prices to make a significant move higher are hard to see today. The US has a 300MB projected carryover and South America is looking at record production by 20MMT putting them somewhere between 220-225MMT. The biodiesel and SAF programs are in flux until the new administration takes office.

The next potential market mover will be the January crop report that will be released next Friday. The USDA did make an adjustment to corn stocks in December. Do they make another here in January? After that, the next potential market mover will be planting intentions in March. We will have to see if the market sees the need to move futures prices one way or the other to buy acres. Today we are at 2.31 to 1, that is a neutral number or maybe even a little more weighted to corn.

Lisa Warne
Grain Merchandiser, Marysville (Region 4)

Happy New Year! I guess Old Man Winter finally decided to make an appearance. The holidays gave a nice rally to the grain market and a good number of you took advantage of some old crop sales. While the market is down significantly today and off recent highs, we are still ahead of where we were just a week or so ago. It’s probably still a good selling opportunity to core your bins or stop delayed price fees from accruing.

There haven’t been large fundamental changes in data for the market moves, but thin trade over the last couple weeks paired with talk of dryness in Argentina and possible yield cuts in the upcoming USDA report next Friday have been enough for the funds to reduce some short positions.

On a housekeeping note, we will soon be moving our weekly commentary from your email to the inbox of our portal. You can log in by downloading the app on your phone, or visiting Portal.HeritageCooperative.com Have a great weekend, bundle up, and stay safe.

Ralph Wince
Grain Merchandiser, Canfield (Region 5)

Good afternoon and Happy New Year. Grain markets started off the New Year on a positive note yesterday but as I write this today, we are seeing some profit taking. Corn is down -.09 cents and beans are down -.20 cents.

Mar25 CBOT corn saw a 6-month high yesterday of 4.60. The corn market has continued to inch stronger. We do continue to see the farmer moving some of this corn into the improving corn markets. The speculators have increased their net long position to a little over 200,000 contracts as of yesterday. That isn’t a record long, but it does make it a little harder to move the market ahead.

Soybeans broke through CBOT Jan 9.75 support on 12/18 and closed that day at 9.5175. I was really concerned when that happened, but we rallied back to 10.15 yesterday and saw a lot of farmers selling. Some of that rally was due to some pockets of dryness in South America. Traders will be watching the weather forecast as we start out next week.

Next Friday will be one of the bigger USDA reports of the year. It is known for its surprises. We should see some squaring up ahead of that report next week. Pay attention to what that report has to say as it will go a long way on pointing the direction of the markets during the balance of the winter. Finally, as we draw near the change of power in Washington D.C. incoming President Donald Trump has said to look for additional tariffs for Canada, Mexico, and China. Most Ag Economists are saying that the U.S. will have the upper hand if those are put on. Most think that Canada and Mexico will get settled fairly quick and China won’t be far behind. Stay tuned as we draw closer to inauguration day.