♪♪ Market to Market is everywhere you are.

Subscribe to Market to Market on YouTube, find us on the PBS Video app to stream on demand, and add our three podcasts on your favorite podcasting app.

♪♪ Coming up on Market to Market -- A cold start to the week delays planting.

Climate takes the spotlight at the White House on Earth Day.

The livestock sector studies pain in food animals.

And market analysis with Mark Gold, next.

♪♪ What's the most complex industry on Earth?

It's not genetics, or meteorology, or logistics.

It's a business that involves them all.

It's farming.

Thank you, farmers, from Pioneer.

♪♪ Tomorrow.

For over 100 years we have worked to help our customers be ready for tomorrow.

Trust in tomorrow.

Information is available from a Grinnell Mutual agent today.

♪♪ This is the Friday, April 23 edition of Market to Market, the Weekly Journal of Rural America.

♪♪ Hello, I'm Paul Yeager.

Need a refresher on the study of supply and demand?

Look no further than the housing market.

The sale of existing homes fell 3.7 percent in March according to the National Association of Realtors.

Those units for sale were selling in 18 days - a record low.

But the prices paid are still moving higher with the tighter supply.

New home sales jumped 20.7 percent last month as construction pace picked up with improving weather conditions.

Mortgage rates also have dropped below 3 percent - helping keep buyers in the market.

As the weather story plays out in the commodity markets, climate took center stage at the White House late this week.

Joe Biden campaigned on this issue and made a case for environmental changes on emissions.

President Biden invited 40 countries to join him and they spent the last two days discussing the issue.

Peter Tubbs has our story.

############ President Joe Biden, D, RI: "“Those that do take action and make bold investments in their people and clean energy future will win the good jobs of tomorrow and make their economies more resilient and more competitive.

So let's run that race, win more, win more sustainable future than we have now.

"” President Joe Biden opened the Leaders Summit on Climate by announcing a pledge that the United States would reduce its carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030.

The ambitious goal would require a dramatic restructuring of how American households and businesses receive and use their energy.

The scientific community believes the reduction of emissions would help slow the planet's warming now that the atmosphere sports a carbon dioxide concentration over 400 parts per million.

Climate scientists estimate that the earth has not seen CO2 levels over 300 parts per million in 800,000 years.

(chart) The added carbon is believed to be the cause of global temperatures rising two degrees since the 1880s.

Xi Jinping, Chinese President: "“To protect the environment is to protect productivity and to improve the environment is to boost productivity.

The truth is as simple as that.

"” China also pledged to reduce its coal consumption over the next 20 years.

The country struggles with air pollution in its major cities, due to both the burning of coal and emissions from vehicles.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also unveiled some of USDA's efforts to combat climate change.

Among what are being called "“climate-smart policies"” is an injection of $330 million for 85 public-private partnerships to cut carbon emissions and an increase in the number of Conservation Reserve Acres from 20 million to 25 million.

Along with some increased incentives for farmers to participate in CRP, the larger number of acres will allow for the sequestration of 15 million tons of CO2.

As of 2019, before the pandemic, the United States had reduced its carbon emissions 13 percent, roughly halfway to the Obama Administration's goal of a 25 percent reduction.

For Market to Market, I'm Peter Tubbs.

Livestock producers take pride in the humane way they are raising their herds.

How to determine if an animal is in pain and how to treat the problem has producers turning to technology for assistance.

Colleen Krantz has more in our Cover Story.

This Kansas cat is about to be spayed.

This Iowa piglet is about to be castrated.

One will be given medicine for the pain.

One will not.

While pain medications labeled for use in livestock are almost nonexistent, companion animals, like Annabelle in Atchison, go through most medical procedures with the help of short- and long-term painkillers.

Dr. Chris Hansen, Atchison Animal Clinic: "“Within our small animal pharmacy, we essentially have two shelves full of different pain medications that we can use...

In cattle, the only labeled product that is out there for pain or analgesia is Banamine Transdermal and the only label is for foot rot.

"” In recent years, however, veterinarians, college professors, and livestock industry leaders have begun working to overcome barriers that have led to the lack of livestock pain medications.

Dr. Chris Hansen, Atchison Animal Clinic: "“Growing up, farm pain management I don't think was really anything anybody thought about.

If something was suffering really bad, it just came down to maybe we need to end that animal's suffering.

"” Getting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve painkillers for livestock, however, has been more complex than with non-food animals because of rules designed to keep drug residue out of meat.

In the past, veterinarians who wanted to ease pain in hogs, cattle and other livestock, were left little choice but to use a drug in an extra-label or off-label manner.

The responsibility landed on the veterinarian to ensure the drug didn't end up in the food supply.

Dr. Chris Hansen, Atchison Animal Clinic: "“...everyone wants to use it but we need to have the research done so that we use it correctly.

"” Now that research is being done.

The FDA has joined industry leaders in studying new options for livestock pain management, but approval any drugs used for livestock usually requires proof of pain and subsequent easing of pain with the medication's use.

Banamine Transdermal, the medication approved for foot rot, a painful condition in cattle, gained FDA approval in 2017, becoming the first officially approved painkiller in the U.S. for a food animal.

Kansas State University participated in the research that helped gain that approval.

The team is trying to pinpoint how to prove when an animal is in pain.

Hans Coetzee, Kansas State University: "“Obviously, it's difficult to assess pain in animal cause they can't talk and tell us how much pain they're in.

So we have to rely on biomarkers of either behavior or the physiology of the animal...

It's been difficult for us to try to assess behavioral changes objectively and to try to come up with a scoring system.

"” Research teams look for indicators of stress in the blood, such as cortisol, but it can disappear too rapidly to consistently measure.

A second indicator of pain is skin temperature.

Pain prompts a fight-or-flight response, which means blood is pulled toward the body's core.

This Kansas State University thermal imaging video of a steer as it is being castrated illustrates the instant change in skin temperature.

Some early work is also being done with facial recognition in hogs and other species.

A program looks for changes in expression that might hint at an animal's suffering.

Another test that shows promise uses a pressure mat to measure changes in an animal's stride length and weight placement.

Hans Coetzee, Kansas State University: "“So looking at the way the animals change the distribution of weight on feet has actually been something we can measure quite accurately.

"” The National Pork Board is working with these university researchers and the FDA to pave the way for a pain medication for hogs, in particular.

This may become particularly important considering a few other nations have banned practices such as piglet castration.

Sherrie Web, American Association of Swine Veterinarians: "“Castration of pigs is a global conversation, not only here in the U.S. but there's a lot of discussion in the E.U., Australia, and in New Zealand.

"” Hogs are castrated because the meat, when cooked, emits an odor known as "“boar taint,"” which surveys show 80 percent of the population find offensive.

Sherrie Web, American Association of Swine Veterinarians: "“We know that the procedure is a painful procedure for piglets.

But what we focus on looking at is ways we can either replace the procedure, refine the procedure or reduce the pain.

"” Piglet castration has been refined some over the years.

The surgery now typically takes place when the piglet is 3- to 5-days old.

This timing seems to allow the piglets to bounce back most rapidly, particularly if they are still with their mothers.

Hans Coetzee, Kansas State University: "“What's urgently needed from a producer's standpoint is a practical way to be able to implement these pain management strategies in a production system because typically we are dealing with large numbers of animals.

"” Ideally, experts would like a medication that can be given to a sow, reaching her piglets via her milk a day later.

The low dose in her milk should ease the piglets' pain during common procedures such as castration or tail docking.

Todd Wiley, producer: "“We would be all about utilizing a product if, in fact, it showed that it worked and was beneficial and useful.

The cost component, while always to some degree a factor, if it is better for our pigs then we'd be inclined to use it.

"” Some veterinary clinics, the Atchison Animal Clinic in Kansas among them, have begun implementing the use of off-label pain medication with the more routine procedures on livestock.

Dr. Chris Hansen, Atchison Animal Clinic: "“whenever we're castrating cattle or dehorning, we're going to administer pain medication.

It's something we feel very strongly about.

....

Initially, we offered it as an option.

Now we've kind of moved on to where it's just something we do....

The consumer can see the value of that and feel good about the way these practices are done.

"” For Market to Market, I'm Colleen Bradford Krantz.

Next, the Market to Market report.

Weather is going to be a factor the next few weeks.

The U.S. and South American drought stories are expanding while cold weather slowed work in the Grain Belt.

For the week, July wheat added 57 cents while the nearby corn contract skyrocketed 59 cents or 10 percent.

The soy oil market flourished while the July contract flirted with levels not traded since 2014.

July soybeans improved 94 cents.

July meal increased $19.40.

July cotton expanded by $3.77 per hundredweight.

Over in the dairy parlor, May Class III milk futures fell 7 cents.

A mixed week in the livestock sector, June cattle dropped $3.45.

August feeders declined $4.65.

And the June lean hog contract gained $4.03.

In the currency markets, the U.S. Dollar index lost 71 ticks.

June crude oil shed 97 cents per barrel.

COMEX Gold decreased $2.90 per ounce.

And the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index improved almost two points to finish at 492.70.

Yeager: Now here to provide insight is regular market analyst Mark Gold.

Hello, sir.

Gold: How are you, Paul?

Yeager: I'm all right.

So the question for you though, Mark, is are you more in a euphoric state or an anxiety-filled state right now when you talk about the big three grains?

Gold: Well, it has certainly been euphoric.

We haven't seen these prices since 2013, 2014.

The American farmer has got to be feeling pretty good out here.

Obviously we're trying to ration and make sure we've got enough carryouts in the long run out here.

As we've been saying, just about everybody has been saying, this year the carryouts are so tight we can't afford to have any hiccups in production and we start the year now with this cold snap that we've had, delayed planting, the wheat being affected to some extent by the frost.

So it's not getting off to a great start.

Now, we can recover from this but it's adding the anxiety into the market which is adding the euphoria from the farmers.

So it's a little bit of a mixed bag.

Yeager: You mentioned the wheat market.

Let's start there just for the sake of snow on wheat that is close to being headed is not usually a good sign.

When you get snow in, I saw it in Kentucky and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, is that the biggest factor on this?

Or is this a combination of going along for the ride with corn?

Gold: Well, we had particularly in Texas and Oklahoma about 10% of the wheat headed.

So when they got the hard frost there's going to be an impact there.

How much?

We're going to have to wait and see.

But certainly there was an impact there and one of the reasons wheat rallied.

Now, is wheat going to rally as much as it did without corn doing what it did?

Probably not.

But on the other hand, we're starting to see some countries and some operations switch from corn into more wheat feeding.

China came up with an announcement saying they want to back off of corn feeding and replace it with other feedstuffs.

So I think that all added into the wheat market here.

Yeager: A nearly 8.7% -- almost 9% rally in the July wheat contract.

Are you at any point -- I know we're going to talk about protection of these markets -- are you selling and protecting right now?

What's some advice?

Gold: You've got the same two choices you've always had.

You can sell the grain and buy some calls and this is one year we've been saying from the very beginning if you're selling $4 corn or $9 beans you need to reown it with some call options.

Now we're up here at $6.50 corn, $5.50 new crop, we're up here at over $13 new crop beans, if you want to make some sales go ahead.

But we've got a lot of summer in front of us and if there was a serious drought and we reduced these yields even more there's no telling where these prices could go.

And I know people they always say, you never make any money buying calls.

I can tell you that just isn't true.

Our clients have made a lot of money listening to the advice of selling the grain and buying the call so they've got decent cash prices sold and then they're picking up significant amounts of money on those call option spreads.

Yeager: We talked about dry conditions.

North Dakota the Governor this week declared a statewide level of emergency when it came to dry conditions.

Wheat is the big story there, not as much corn.

Move quickly to the south though there's a lot of corn.

I'm not saying there's not corn in North Dakota, there is, in the Dakotas, Minnesota, down to the Grain Belt.

It was cold for a big part of the country.

There's a lot of people hesitant to go plant.

But as I speak here right here Friday afternoon, Mark, there's going to be a lot of corn put into the ground.

Is it too far behind yet?

Is that a concern?

Or was the market trading something else in the corn market?

Gold: I think they're trading something else and I don't think it's too late by any stretch of the imagination.

What they're trading is the corn that did get into the ground, the 8% that was reported last week, how much is it going to be affected by this cold weather in terms of germination?

There's two thoughts on that.

One is obviously the cold weather is going to have some real negative effects on the germination.

There are other farmers that will tell you they planted seed in cold weather and had great crops.

So I think the jury is still out on that.

But the fact of the matter is it hasn't been the perfect start.

And again, this is the year where we need everything to go where we produce above trendline yields.

Yeager: Well, not perfect is kind of the name of the story.

And this is a little bit of a question -- I want throw Aaron in Ocheyedan, Iowa out here with his question that he sent to us via Twitter.

We always appreciate all your questions.

He is asking, Mark, sell in May and go away to plant, right?

That's what he's asking.

Should I do that?

The last time we had a January to April consecutive gains, he says back in 2012, we saw a sizeable correction in May.

My question of his question is, are the historicals and technicals out the window at this point?

Gold: Well, I again, we all know about these tight carryouts.

I will say this, I have never seen a year when we had this kind of rally in the spring setting incredibly high prices that we followed it up with a drought.

As my professor used to say at the University of Illinois, Mother Nature takes care of surpluses and deficits.

So is this going to be the one year that it doesn't ring true and we're going to put a drought on top of everything else?

I don't know.

So if you want to sell I wouldn't just go away.

I'd sell it and buy some calls in case there is a problem because we could be looking at prices $18, $19 beans, $8, $9, $10 corn, $9, $10 wheat.

We could certainly be looking at those prices.

But there's nothing wrong with putting these kind of prices in the bank, spending 25 cents on corn, 30 cents on wheat, 35 cents on beans to reown some kind of call spreads to keep you in the game.

Yeager: You just said numbers that I think about two months ago, let alone a year ago, we would have both been laughed off the stage if we said that.

Things change in a hurry here.

So I guess the question is in corn, or soybeans if you want to transition into here, what is that event that could change this quickly and send us back down the elevator shaft?

I'm asking you basically to predict a black swan event.

Gold: Right.

Well, in my opinion the black swan event would be China moving on Taiwan.

That would be disastrous for the markets in my opinion and overnight depending on how the President reacts to that, which I can't imagine he would react well, we could see a big shift overnight.

If there's some hiccup in demand, some other black swan we don't know about, keep in mind we have increased position limits for the funds now, almost double what they used to be able to buy.

We're at a record long position in corn right now, about 470,000 contracts of corn.

And then the Merc announced yesterday that they're expanding price limits.

So corn is going from 30 to 40, wheat is going from 40 to 45, beans are going from 70 cents to a buck a bushel which means corn if we're limit up or down in two days that's a dollar move, beans it's a $2.50 move.

Now, if something shakes on the negative side that first $2.50 you're going to be a deer in the headlights and you may have missed it all.

Yeager: You can't pick up the phone.

Move into the bean market for me, Mark, because yes it could go quickly but what is happening there?

Gold: Well, it's mainly a soy oil driven market.

There has been tremendous demand from soil oil all over the world.

Part of it is this new green phase the world is trying to go through and produce cleaner energy using less oil so that has been part of it.

Demand has been good.

Now we've got problems in India with COVID and that is really going to dampen the soybean oil demand, particularly for palm oil out here which has been a leading driver of this market.

But it has been strong.

You really can't justify it on the weather.

We're not really planting beans now.

Some people south are.

But the fact of the matter is it's going in conjunction with the corn and with the wheat.

There's this euphoria going on.

The beans have got a very, very tight carryout.

And again, we just can't afford to see lower acres or worse yield out here.

This has got to be the year where we've got to see better than trendline yield and we need to draw more acres on the final numbers in June.

Yeager: Speaking of elevator shafts, we kind of headed that way in livestock.

I think if I have my notes here, June cattle have dropped $6 in two weeks, June feeders have dropped $10 in two weeks.

Things can turn south in a hurry.

Is this all based on feed inputs?

Consumer?

What's going on here with cattle?

Gold: Well, certainly the feeder cattle is based on the corn.

That is where we hit it.

I'm not sure how you justify fat cattle going down with boxed beef at $283.

It's been straight up from $224 and the demand for the beef is incredible but we don't have enough slaughter capacity.

And the American farmer, the rancher, the guy running the feedlot, he's getting slammed out here with higher costs and no place to move the cattle to so the demand is there.

I'm telling you, the prices of meat are going to go considerably higher.

Does that mean it's going to affect the live cattle?

Not necessarily.

It hasn't been the case so far.

But I think it's as much a function of slaughter.

If we can get all the plants open, all the workers back without COVID and really get things cranking it will help that live cattle market tremendously.

Yeager: In the hog market they have bucked the beef trend.

Why?

Gold: Well, I think mainly because of China.

We know that they have lost about 20% of their herd, they love pork, the U.S. loves pork too and there's just been great demand out here.

So I think it has been, we've had a setback from the highs, we have come back here in the last couple of days.

I think the pork market is still okay.

But now we're running into pork only $10 under the beef.

Is anybody going to buy pork the same price as beef?

I think you'll buy beef for the most part.

But that is something that is going to be a damper on the hog market unless the cattle can rally.

Yeager: All right, in the last 30 seconds, normally you talk about WGN's Tom Skilling for weather and the impact that it has on the Chicago Board of Trade.

What is going to happen when the Chicago main media or the national press starts reporting about what is happening in these commodity prices?

What is that extra attention going to mean for agriculture.

You only get 30 seconds for a whole agriculture problem.

Gold: Well, here's what is going to happen.

When the media finds out about it, it's time to sell it because they're notorious for either reporting on the lows or reporting on the highs and that is usually about it.

So if we see NBC and ABC and all the rest talking about all these high prices and how bad it's going to get, probably time to sell something.

Yeager: Thank you, Mark.

I appreciate it.

Gold: Thank you, Paul.

Yeager: That will do it for this installment of Market to Market.

We will talk more in Market Plus so join us there.

Find that on our website of MarkettoMarket.org.

The cab views are prevalent on Instagram and will only heighten this planting season.

We're trying to tag and share many of them on our story section on our own feed of MarketToMarketShow.

Follow today to see the pics.

Next week, we look at replanting efforts after a historic weather event.

Thank you so much for watching.

Have a great week.

♪♪ ♪♪ Market to Market is a production of Iowa PBS which is solely responsible for its content.

What's the most complex industry on Earth?

It's not genetics, or meteorology, or logistics.

It's a business that involves them all.

It's farming.

Thank you, farmers, from Pioneer.

♪♪ Tomorrow.

For over 100 years we have worked to help our customers be ready for tomorrow.

Trust in tomorrow.

Information is available from a Grinnell Mutual agent today.