From staff reports STILLWATER – “It’s not the prettiest of days in the grain markets,” said Oklahoma State University Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics John Michael Riley during the Rural Economic Outlook Conference. OSU’s Agricultural Economics Department hosted the Oct. 16 event at the university’s ConocoPhillips Alumni Center. “Prices for all of our grains are under a lot of pressure,” he continued. “Production is outpacing demand. We are hitting some headwinds with trade as we look at a various number of factors, such as competition from overseas.”
With a slightly stronger dollar, “and compiling port issues for the export market that weren’t needed because there is enough pressure here domestically… it’s not the rosiest of outlooks concerning where we are at with corn, beans and wheat – all of our grain markets,” Riley said, noting that producers had been substantially apprehensive toward wheat early in the growing season, which did improve over time, but all of Oklahoma’s summer crops remain under pressure.
“Cotton is probably in one of its worst years of the past five or so,” he stated. “Yields are not the best because of the dry conditions here in the state, and on top of that, you’ve got all of the pressures that exist in the grain market spilling over into cotton. Normally, you would have a natural hedge in some respects: when you have a bad growing year, you might have stronger prices. That is just not the case this year with cotton.”
Riley added that wheat is a necessary crop, but it is currently risky as well.
“There is a tremendous amount of risk when you put that seed in the ground with the soil moisture conditions where they are. It’s not something I would want to face, and I’m encouraged by the resiliency of farmers here in Oklahoma.”
He advised wheat producers to focus on cost management.
Riley admitted that the USDA’s latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report was predictable.
“As we get into the harvest season,” he said, “we know a lot more about what that crop looks like, and certainly, now, with a lot of test trials being run up in the northern parts of the U.S., and a lot of harvest already happening in the southern parts of the U.S., we know a lot more about the crop so these reports are generally better received.”