USDA drops two of its most anticipated reports at noon — Grain Stocks and Prospective Plantings — offering fresh numbers on crop supplies and early acreage intentions. Both can move markets, and both land before growers know what the weather will bring.
This year’s backdrop is unusually volatile: a record corn harvest has left bins full, and the U.S.-Iran war has disrupted fertilizer and fuel shipments. That puts a big fat wildcard right at the start of a critical year for American row-crop farmers under so much financial strain from high production costs that the Trump administration is disbursing $11 billion in aid, with Congress considering billions more.
On grain stocks, analysts are forecasting higher inventories than a year ago for corn, soybeans and wheat. Cody Bills of the Farmers Business Network is predicting record highs.
As for plantings, USDA had just started its preliminary survey of farmers when war in the Middle East erupted and pushed up fertilizer prices. Higher costs could prompt some producers to switch from grains to much less fertilizer-reliant soybeans. Grain prices jumped since the war began on Feb. 28 but are down from four-week highs.
“In other words, what farmers told USDA then, and what they might be thinking now, are likely two different things,” Susan Stroud of No Bull Ag writes in a note to clients. She says acreage expectations are “wide — and probably wrong.”
Trade guesses put corn plantings at 94.5 million acres, down from 98 million last year, and soybeans at 85.5 million acres, up from 81.2 million in 2025.
In the end, Stroud says it will be about the weather and the “roller-coaster” tied to energy, potential China demand and new biofuel-blending rules.
But don’t forget: There’s the issue of possibly more federal farm aid from Washington.
“To get paid, you have to plant,” Stroud noted.
USDA suggests sugar quota reallocations are not on the horizon
After missing a deadline for reallocating unused quotas for reduced-tariff raw sugar imports, USDA is suggesting that it may not reallocate the quotas at all.
Every year, the U.S. allocates tariff-rate quotas to trading partners to allow at least 1.3 million tons to enter at a lower duty rate. Officials typically reallocate any unused quotas to ensure most are eventually used. But this year, an estimated 80,000 metric tons of unused quotas may not be reallocated.
“Conditions in farm country are difficult; producers have been sounding the alarm for months — why would the Trump Administration bring in more foreign sugar to compete against domestic production?” a USDA spokesperson told Agri-Pulse in an email Monday.
The sugar industry estimates that the unused quotas could amount to around 80,000 metric tons. Those volumes could be forced to enter the U.S. at the out-of-quota tariff rate of more than 15 cents per pound.
Read more at Agri-Pulse.com
Annual report on trade barriers due today
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is required to submit its annual National Trade Estimate report to the president and Congress today.
The report, which Chief Agricultural Trade Negotiator Julie Callahan calls “the encyclopedia of bad behavior,” outlines trade barriers U.S. exporters face in international markets. Analysts and trade practitioners will be poring over this year’s release for signals of the administration’s shifting trade priorities.
“We're all getting a multitude of signals from the administration as to what they really care about,” said Dan Mullaney, a former assistant U.S. Trade Representative.
Mullaney says he expects a greater focus on some of the trade issues that have been the subject of recent trade investigations, like forced labor and industrial capacity. He also says it could shed light on the administration’s priorities in ongoing trade negotiations.
“Often, you would get signals about that from the NTE report,” he says.
Florida citrus alarm
Rep. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., vice chair of the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, is leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in urging EPA to complete a review of cutting-edge technologies to fight a disease that’s caused citrus to plummet in Florida.
The culprit is so-called citrus greening, a fatal bacterial disease affecting citrus trees globally. It’s contributed to a decline in Florida production of more than 90% from a peak in the 1990s, says a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin from Franklin and a dozen other U.S. House lawmakers from the Sunshine State.
“Florida’s citrus industry has taken hit after hit, from greening to hurricanes to recent freeze damage, but growers are resilient and science is starting to move in the right direction,” Franklin said in a statement to Agri-Pulse. “Rootstock technologies and other emerging tools are giving producers a real path forward. Growers are ready to reinvest and replant, but they need EPA to complete its review and provide a clear path forward.”
Recent freezes caused an estimated $675 million in damage to citrus alone, the lawmakers including Democratic Rep. Darren Soto write. The letter says growers are prepared to invest in more than 2.5 million new trees this year, but that depends on regulatory certainty and “access to solutions that can sustain productivity over time.”
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The EPA’s review of emerging technologies includes gene-editing CRISPR-based tools, which Florida Farm Bureau Federation President Jeb Smith says “offer a promising, science-based solution to improve disease tolerance and restore confidence for growers looking to replant.”
Gevo plans to expand ethanol production at North Dakota site
Gevo plans to add a second ethanol production facility at its North Dakota site, anticipating production of up to 75 million gallons of low-carbon ethanol per year.
The project would follow a previously announced expansion of the existing plant. Together, the projects could raise total site capacity to about 150 million gallons annually while capturing more than 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and producing additional animal feed and corn oil. The site could support future alcohol-to-jet pathways to scale sustainable aviation fuel production, the company says.
Gevo, which acquired Red Trail Energy in Richardton, N.D., in 2025, shifted investment from its South Dakota site to North Dakota in part because of delays in the multistate Summit Carbon Solutions carbon dioxide pipeline.
Egg prices stabilize, AFBF says
Better biosecurity is helping keep highly pathogenic avian influenza and therefore egg prices, at bay, the American Farm Bureau Federation says in a Market Intel report released Monday.
An analysis by AFBF economist Bernt Nelson also says “ongoing flock rebuilding and a more coordinated USDA response are helping support continued stability in both supply and markets.”
January and February saw a sharp increase in detections, with 15.5 million birds affected. While “substantial,” Nelson says in his analysis the total is 56% lower than the first two months of 2025. So far this year, 20.62 million birds have been affected, down about 11% from 23.2 million birds affected at the same time last year.
Egg prices have fallen 57% from last year’s highs, Nelson notes.
Final word
“I have always been skeptical of the value of the WTO, and this week’s conference confirmed that this organization will play only a limited role in future global trade policy efforts.” – U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement after negotiations on key issues at the 14th World Trade Organization ministerial conference failed to reach a breakthrough.
He continued, “I, along with many ministers, left my capital during a particularly busy time and traveled long distances to participate in this ministerial, given its potential significance. I was disappointed that so few of my counterparts attended, despite their repeated assertions that the WTO is ‘at the core’ of the global trading system.”
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