Exports Steady For Key Crops As Trade, Tariff Disputes Continue

Sep 12, 2018

By Grant Gerlock

Corn exports, for example, are up 3 percent over the previous marketing year. (The marketing year USDA uses for corn and soybeans runs from September 1 to August 31.) Soybean exports are down 3 percent, but Gregg Doud, the top agriculture negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, considers that to be an encouraging sign given the turmoil caused by tariffs lobbed back and forth between the U.S. and China — the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans.

“What we’re seeing in these markets right now is that corn, soybeans, beef, pork — they’ve been really, really solid,” Doud said after meeting with leaders of Nebraska agriculture groups in Omaha on Monday.

Soybean exports to China are down 23 percent, but the overall decline in exports was small thanks to larger shipments to countries like Vietnam, Pakistan and Egypt, which has nearly tripled its soybean imports from the U.S. this year.

Farm groups continue to push for a speedy resolution with China and for completion of NAFTA negotiations with Canada and Mexico.

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Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.