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 Senate easily confirmed Katherine Tai to be President Joe Biden’s U.S. Trade Representative with a bipartisan 98-0 vote Wednesday.

Cuba could be buying a lot more poultry, corn, dairy and other ag commodities produced in the U.S., but first the U.S. needs to reverse course and begin strengthening ties with the island nation. That is the message from some of the largest American farm groups to the incoming Biden administration.

President-elect Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail to reverse the Trump administration’s policy of breaking ties with Cuba, and that has U.S. farm groups once again hoping their farmers will benefit with increased trade.

U.S. agriculture exports are going to be stronger than first expected in fiscal year 2021 and should eclipse 2020, according to a new USDA forecast that raised sales estimates for soybeans, sorghum, corn and wheat.

A nationwide cap and trade program hasn’t been on the legislative horizon since the idea died in Congress in 2010, but government and private market developers are counting on there being a robust demand for carbon offsets from a host of corporations, including energy companies, airlines and even major food companies, that need to offset their emissions.

A pair of reports from Department of Agriculture economists project a drop in American grain and oilseed production and overseas stocks on hand, prolonging a bump in commodity prices.

China is again promising that it has made structural changes to its tariff rate quota system to import corn, wheat and rice, but it’s still not clear if that’s the case as the new deadline approaches for the U.S. to tell the World Trade Organization if it agrees.