Morrow County Grain Growers                             Pendleton Grain Growers

             Duane Disque or John Ripple                                      Jon Sperl

             1-800-452-7396 or 541-989-8221                           1-800-422-7611 or 541-276-7611

              or Dan Steiner 481-6614 (office), 571-3798 (cell)  graingrowers@centurytel.net

                                                            GOOD MORNING!!!

            Below are the best indicated market bids as of:   9:00  on      2/26/08

***NOTE: Corn values vary depending on delivery location PLEASE call for updates.

            What a day already! Seems to be a theme developing…. Last 2 days the Mpls March has traded a range of $7.55! The market is “technically” about done bidding for 2008 corn acres. The CRC insurance apparently is cal’c based on the AVERAGE close of the Dec ’08 futures for the month of FEB. US corn acres appear to be ‘amped’ with moisture and ready for spring. One thing that we should also be watching in these fast paced markets is OI (open interest). OI is no where near record levels, yet volatility and volume of trades is at historic levels. The reason for this is that there have been so many people/ businesses forced out of the futures markets (due to ENORMOUS capital requirements for margin calls). So the market is dominated by a relatively few VERY large players. They swing with a big stick, and mostly they all trade the same direction, so when it moves up it does so easily, same thing for down.

            FAO says that fertilizer production will out pace demand, as they estimate fert production increases of about 3.9% while demand is growing about 1.3%. Could/ should lead to cheaper fert by end of year. SK made MAJOR news this morning with their FIRST ever purchase of GMO corn for FOOD use. This is a REALLY big deal. As expected Kazakhstan announced that they will no longer have wheat available for export…since they can’t get replacement stocks from Russia. China says that they will try to manage fertilizer supplies/ prices through price and export controls. One item they will use: Rail freight for fertilizer will NOT be available before the end of April. They are still a long way from a free market system, but in todays world that is not all bad. Stats CANADA said they expect wheat production to increase 25% vs. last year. They are projecting 25 myn mt. Hard red spring acres will not benefit much from the increases as most “spring wheat” acres will be devoted to Durum, Canola, etc. (you know the HIGHER value crops)!!!

***Didja Know: Virgen Atlantic flew a trans-atlantic flight with 1 engine running a 80/20 blend of petro/ bio-fuel blend? France is the EU’s largest wheat exporter, and also the greatest recipient of Ag subsidies, worth about $59 Byn/ year?  According to our friends at the NASS the number of farms in Oregon has increased in the last 5 years, with the increases coming in LARGE farms, not hobby farms: In the revenue classes: $10m - $100m, $250m-$500m, and $500m each class is up 200 farms in the last 5 years. Nationwide, all classes grew EXCEPT the smallest classes of $1m-10m and $10-99m which were sharply lower.