Shutdown halts key USDA studies throughout harvest season
10 October 2025
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US information important to world grain and soybean buying and selling has gone darkish in the course of the federal authorities’s shutdown, leaving commodity merchants and farmers with out crop manufacturing estimates, export gross sales information and market studies in the course of the peak of the autumn harvest, reported Reuters.
The information blackout comes at a very troublesome time for farmers, who’re grappling with low grain costs and uncertainty over injury to corn and soy fields from dry climate and crop illnesses.
Earlier shutdowns throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period had been much less disruptive as a result of they occurred after harvest season, analysts stated.
Trump is now locked in a commerce battle with China that has stored the world’s greatest soy importer from shopping for US provides. Merchants have been watching intently for any trace of a deal, however the US Division of Agriculture (USDA) will not be confirming export gross sales as standard now.
The disruption has left growers and merchants with out recent authorities info on the progress of the harvest and the state of the crops. The business depends on USDA studies to cost and hedge commodities from corn and soy to cattle and hogs.
“The market is simply flying blind right here,” stated Sherman Newlin, an Illinois farmer and analyst with Danger Administration Commodities.
Among the many halted releases are USDA’s weekly export gross sales report and each day gross sales bulletins, and its month-to-month World Agricultural Provide and Demand Estimates (WASDE), which was due on Thursday. The provision and demand report would have offered updates on US corn and soybean output and world demand whereas farmers haul in giant crops.
The Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee additionally suspended the discharge of weekly information that reveals speculators’ positions within the markets, which might affect crop costs.
The CFTC couldn’t instantly be reached for remark, whereas the USDA blamed Democrats for information disruptions.
“Whereas Democrats proceed to vote to extend the federal government shutdown, key USDA studies like WASDE and the crop progress report are delayed, depriving farmers of essential info they use to market their crops and plan for subsequent yr,” the USDA stated in an announcement to Reuters.
With out these updates, traders are speaking with farmers, finding out satellite tv for pc imagery and specializing in technical pricing actions on the Chicago Board of Commerce to attempt to determine what business grain merchants and commodity funds are doing.
However the information hole has resulted in a scarcity of market transparency and an uneven taking part in discipline, some merchants stated.
Main grain companies corresponding to Cargill, Bunge World and Archer-Daniels-Midland maintain giant grain inventories and proprietary information, giving them a bonus over smaller gamers, merchants stated. The businesses declined to remark.
Lacking an goal image
Buying and selling volumes in grain futures have suffered as traders hesitate to take giant positions with out the CFTC’s weekly Commitments of Merchants information, which reveals fund positions.
“With out that sort of information, who needs to tackle large threat?” Newlin stated.
The blackout hits US merchants hardest as market contributors in Asia, South America and Europe produce other information sources, stated Ole Houe, director of advisory companies at IKON Commodities in Sydney.
Merchants stated they will survive October with out USDA’s month-to-month provide and demand information as a result of it’s well-known that US harvests are giant. They may face a shock when updates resume, although.
“Your entire grain business watches this month-to-month report,” stated Erica Maedke, vice chairman of Ever.Ag Insights, of WASDE. “By subsequent month, everyone’s estimates are going to be off.”
Within the meantime, analysts are leaning on conversations with farmers and grain elevators to piece collectively the market image.
Merchants are additionally monitoring foundation ranges for soybeans, or the distinction between money costs and futures, to decipher whether or not farmers are delaying crop gross sales or provides could also be tightening on account of export demand.
“It’s like an elephant however solely seeing a sliver of it,” Maedke stated. “USDA provides us the entire image each month. With out it, you solely see your little piece.”
Personal companies together with StoneX and S&P World Commodity Insights have issued their very own manufacturing estimates displaying smaller corn yields. Nonetheless, USDA’s information, drawn from satellite tv for pc imagery, farmer surveys and discipline samples, stays the benchmark.
“Total, USDA provides us probably the most goal numbers we’ve got,” stated Diana Klemme of Grain Service Company in Atlanta. “They could not at all times be proper, however the market trades on them. We miss them.”
