From Reuters Top U.S. and Chinese trade officials reaffirmed their commitment to a Phase 1 trade deal, which has seen China lagging on its obligations to buy American goods, giving a boost to financial markets on Tuesday. Read the rest of the article here. Read More »

From NASS There were 6.9 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, the same as reported the previous week. Washington grain harvest continued in a weather week that saw a little of everything. Crop conditions remained relatively unchanged. In western Washington, warm and dry weather continued with the exception of some quick rain late in the week. Fruit trees continued ... Read More »

From agriculture.com Loopholes remain, but the USDA is tightening its crop subsidy rules by limiting who can collect a payment for managing a farm, historically one of its most porous definitions. The new regulation, to be published soon, requires people to perform at least 500 hours of management or at least 25 percent of the management work required annually to ... Read More »

From Bloomberg The global wheat trade is being shaken up again after extreme weather hurt crops in the European Union while harvests are booming elsewhere. Read the rest of the article here. Read More »

From NASS There were 6.9 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, up from 6.8 reported the previous week. A cooler weather pattern gave way to much warmer temperatures late in the week. Several state records for high temperature were set on Sunday in the western portions of the state. The swing back to hot and dry weather had ... Read More »

By Trista Crossley “With travel being curtailed during the pandemic, it has been more difficult for us to meet in person with our legislators, so we want to thank Rep. Newhouse for coming to Ritzville to sit down with us,” said Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG). “We also want to thank those growers ... Read More »

From the Capital Press The USDA on Tuesday extended COVID-19 relief to nurseries, sheep ranchers and producers of dozens of other farm goods, while turning down aid to dozens of other commodities. Washington hop and wheat farmers were among those who were denied. USDA said there wasn’t evidence their prices slumped by 5% or more between mid-January and mid-April as ... Read More »

The National Agricultural Statistics Service just released their Aug. 1 crop production report. Winter Wheat Based on Aug. 1, 2020, conditions, production of winter wheat in Washington is forecast at 122 million bushels, unchanged from last month but up 3 percent from last year. Harvested area, at 1.65 million acres, is down 50,000 acres from 2019. Yield is expected to ... Read More »

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced yesterday that additional commodities will now be covered by the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) in response to public comments and data. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is extending the deadline to apply for the program to Sept. 11. Unfortunately, USDA did not extend eligibility to any additional classes of wheat. ... Read More »

From NASS There were 6.8 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, down from 7.0 reported the previous week. A cooler weather pattern was welcome news to most crop producers. Some rare August rains were reported in western Washington. This moisture helped those pastures that suffered from lack of moisture. Livestock were on pasture where still viable. Some stock ... Read More »