Market Outlook Warns Of Overproduction

 

The senior market analyst with FarmLink Marketing Solutions says farmers have had to work harder over the past couple of marketing years.

 

Neil Townsend notes in the past, high prices seemed to always have been there, adding this has not been the case recently.

 

He presented his 2018 market outlook last week at St Jean Farm Days.

 

"We think that prices are going to kind of struggle to maintain momentum if they start to go up. There's just a lot of crops around in the world, big supplies of wheat, corn and soybeans and those are going to keep the pressure on prices if they try to increase. That being said, we don't really see further declines because there's just enough of a weather threat say in North America to keep it a little bit honest."

 

His biggest concern moving forward is the lack of any real incremental demand.

 

"The job of a marketplace is to clear, and that means to find a price that puts stock levels in a manageable range. Right now we've been building stocks over the last few years and the stocks are getting rather burdensome. Typical behavior is, you find the high cost producer and you put him out of business. I don't think we're at that point right now, or at least nobody thinks they're the high cost producer because every farmer, everywhere around the world is continuing to produce, continuing to plant fence post to fence post."

 

Video: Dicamba Returns for Georgia Farmers: What the New EPA Ruling Means for Cotton Growers

After being unavailable in 2024 due to registration issues, dicamba products are returning for Georgia farmers this growing season — but under strict new conditions.

In this report from Tifton, Extension Weed Specialist Stanley Culpepper explains the updated EPA ruling, including new application limits, mandatory training requirements, and the need for a restricted use pesticide license. Among the key changes: a cap of two ½-pound applications per year and the required use of an approved volatility reduction agent with every application.

For Georgia cotton producers, the ruling is significant. According to Taylor Sills with the Georgia Cotton Commission, the vast majority of cotton planted in the state carries the dicamba-tolerant trait — meaning farmers had been paying for technology they couldn’t use.

While environmental groups have expressed concerns over spray drift, Georgia growers have reduced off-target pesticide movement by more than 91% over the past decade. Still, this two-year registration period will come with increased scrutiny, making stewardship and compliance more important than ever.