Good Morning farm country. Davis Michaelsen here with your morning update for Friday June 5. From Pro Farmer’s First Thing Today, these are some of the stories we are watching this morning:

Corn futures are fractionally higher and at their highest levels since April after two-sided action overnight. Soybeans are also pushing to new multi-month highs with futures up 1 to 2 cents. Winter wheat futures are 1 to 3 cents higher amid followthrough buying, with spring wheat fractionally to 2 cents higher. The U.S. dollar index is marginally higher, with crude oil futures also posting gains.

The U.S. exported 79.5 million bu. of soybeans during April, which was a few million bu. above what inspections implied, according to Census Bureau data released yesterday. May will also be a weak month. That signals soybean exports really need to pick up to reach USDA’s export forecast of 1.675 billion bu. for 2019-20.

U.S. Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer says he feels “very good” about the Phase 1 trade agreement with China, which he said is doing a good job of honoring the pact amid the coronavirus pandemic. China this week bought more than $100 million of U.S. soybeans, Lighthizer said during a virtual event held by the Economic Club of New York, refuting a report that Beijing wasn’t living up to its commitments on the commodity purchases.

The OPEC cartel and its allies are set to extend production cuts through the end of July and could meet this weekend to sign off on the deal, Bloomberg reports. After almost a week of talks, Russia and Saudi Arabia clinched a tentative agreement with holdout member Iraq, which made less than halAg f of its assigned cutbacks last month.

AstraZeneca is aiming to produce 2 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine. That includes 400 million for the U.S. and U.K. and 1 billion for those in low- and middle-income countries. Distribution would likely start in September or October, with the balance of deliveries likely to be made by early 2021.

Argentine soybean harvest is basically complete at 98.6% finished with producers bringing in a crop with an average yield of 2.96 MT per hectare for a crop of 49.5 MMT, according to the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange. The exchange reports corn harvest was 55.6% complete with an average yield of 8.9 MT per hectare. It still expects the crop to come in around 50 MMT.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue is encouraging EPA “to use any available flexibilities to allow the continued use of already purchased dicamba products, which are a critical tool for American farmers to combat weeds resistant to many other herbicides, in fields that are already planted.” This comes after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to vacate dicamba registrations.

The Department of Justice has requested information from four major U.S. beef packers – Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef – over potential antitrust violations, according to Bloomberg. The requests are akin to a subpoena. This comes as USDA has been examining the U.S. cattle market situation in the wake of a fire at a beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas, and also added examining market action in the wake of the Covid-19 situation.

Cattle futures posted moderate gains on Thursday as traders continue to show little interest in aligning futures with the cash market. This week’s cash action has ranged from $110 to $118, with the bulk of trade occurring in the middle of that range. Most lean hog contracts posted slight to moderate gains on Thursday, but the trend of the market still favors market bears. Working through backlogged supplies will take time and that weighs on near-term cash prospects.

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