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ASF Lessons Learned in Germany of Value to North America

The Executive Director of the Swine Health Information Center says the response to African Swine Fever in Germany is providing information that can be valuable for North America. The Swine Health Information Center, as part of its March enewsletter has released its monthly domestic and global swine disease monitoring reports.
 
SHIC Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says, ween talking about the global swine disease situation, the first thing that comes to mind is African Swine Fever.
 
Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
 
Germany is one that is of interest because that is a major pork producing country in the EU. African Swine Fever remains in the eastern part of Germany, the spill over from Poland in wild boar and it also remains in the wild boar. There has not yet been African Swine Fever that's been found in any of the commercial herds in Germany so that's a good thing.
 
We're watching that closely and what we're trying to do especially, is watch the way that the German industry, the German government handles that situation in Germany so we can learn lessons and maybe have some experience that we can look at to apply here if we need that.
 
Right now, the situation in Germany continues to evolve and there are more and more feral swine that are being found but it is staying in the feral swine population. They're trying to control that, they're trying to eliminate it as best they can and some of those procedures are things that we're watching to see how they best do that.
Source : Farmscape

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2025 USDA December Crop Report a “Dud” + Trump $12 Billion U.S. Farm Aid

Video: 2025 USDA December Crop Report a “Dud” + Trump $12 Billion U.S. Farm Aid


The USDA December crop report was friendly corn, neutral soybeans and bearish wheat. The USDA did surprise and increase the 25/26 U.S. corn export forecast to a new record high at 3.2 billion bushels now up 12% vs. last year vs. prior at +9% vs. the export pace to date up 30% the best in 10 years even higher than 20/21! The USDA left the 25/26 U.S. soybean export pace unchanged at 1.635 billion bushels. Higher global wheat supplies will remain a weight and headwind for wheat into year end and start of 2026.
Mexico is now the #1 buyer of U.S. corn, soybeans (usually China), wheat and pork!
USDA also released its long-term early projections but expect more changes by February of 2026.
Trump announces a $12 billion U.S. farmer aid package to be paid out by February 28, 2026. This helps no one but the ag banks, farm equipment companies, seed and fertilizer companies. It does prevent more farmer bushels from being sold near-term but is not bullish grain prices long-term. The Trump administration should focus on increasing U.S. domestic demand and propping up grain futures so farmers can cover their higher costs, up since COVID of 2020.
The China U.S. soybean purchase tracker now stands at 4.521 mmt or 38% of the 12 mmt promised by China at year end or is it end of February or the growing season? Why the discrepancy vs. the fact sheet. The optics are poor for the Trump administration.
After surging to contract highs U.S. natural gas futures plunged over 30+% in just 5-trading days!
Silver traded to new record highs as the debasement and de dollarization trade continued but technicals remain overbought near-term.
Soybean futures remained in correction mode after the funds went record long futures on Nov. 19 +233,000 contracts but the $10.80 support should hold into year end when the fund profit taking/liquidation comes to an end from the year end, end of month and end of quarter selling.
The U.S. Fed cut interest rates for the 3rd time by 25 basis points to a range of 3.50 – 3.75% and they will only cut one more time in 2026 and once in 20267/ but when Powell is gone next April the replacement is willing to cut more aggressively and we could see U.S. interest rates fall to 2.0% very bullish for ag and stocks as it could reignite inflation into 2027.
After 2 months of being drier than normal in Brazil the rains have finally arrived for the 1st half of December, and a record crop is still in the cards but if this pattern continues and verifies it could start to delay the harvest. Argentina after being too wet has turned dry but they are too small, compared top Brazil in the grand picture.
The Canadian dollar surged to $0.73 after better-than-expected employment data with 180,000 new jobs in the past 3-months and 3rd quarter GDP at +2.6% but this could be short-lived.
The latest CFTC report as of 11-19-2025 reported a record long fund position in soybeans at +233,000 contracts when 2026 March soybean futures peaked on 11-19-25 at $11.724/bu.