Most of the iconic trading pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where traders would buy and sell corn, wheat, soybean and other future contracts with elaborate hand gestures, will close permanently, according to a CME Group announcement.

The nation’s corn pile is shrinking but soybean ending stocks are holding steady, according to Friday’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.

The nation’s farmers are set to plant 178.7 million acres of corn and soybeans combined this growing season, well below analysts' estimates, according to a USDA report released Wednesday.

The U.S. on Monday suspended a formal trade tie with Burma two months after a military coup and the arrest of the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others in her National League for Democracy party. The U.S. action comes after years of increasing agricultural trade with Burma amid warming relations between the two countries, but that progress is now threatened.

Agriculture Department officials left corn, soybeans, and wheat projections mostly unchanged in Tuesday’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.

An Agri-Pulse analysis shows that the Trump administration's Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments were distributed more widely than traditional forms of government assistance although larger farms continue to receive the big share of the money.

Brazil is the third largest wheat-importing country in the world, and while it’s already a strong customer of the U.S., representatives of American farmers say there’s plenty of room for more business as they continue a campaign to win over more Brazilian millers and bakers who make the country’s bread, cookies, cakes and pasta.

The Department of Agriculture expects U.S. farm exports to hit a record $157 billion for fiscal 2021, an increase of $21 billion over the year before, as the global economy recovers and China increases its already strong demand for U.S. corn, soybeans and meat.