AG Squawk AM 8/13/2026 with Jed Sidwell | WASDE Corn Yield Cut and Flooding Threaten Crops

We run through the overnight board, then zoom out to the two stories driving the morning: flooding across the northern Corn Belt and a WASDE corn yield cut that changes the tone of supply expectations. We also dig into the packer margin debate, then connect the dots to falling oil prices and a packed economic calendar.
• live cattle and feeder cattle finish lower while hogs trend modestly higher
• grain quotes hold steady overnight as traders digest new catalysts
• catastrophic flooding in southeast Indiana and the risk of unharvestable acres
• WASDE report cuts corn yield near 180.1 and shifts supply expectations
• packer margins debate and why processing and branded programs add value
• oil drops on softer demand forecasts despite Middle East tension headlines
• export sales, jobless claims, PPI and other key reports on the calendar


If you have any things you'd like to see in the show or any comments or questions, make sure and leave them down below.

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Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Market Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Good morning and welcome to Ag Squawk AM. Jed Sidwell here live from Joliet, Illinois. Today we're going to talk about what happened yesterday in that WASD report. Packer margins are up for some debate, and oil fell overnight. If you didn't notice, we'll get to all of that here in a bit.

Cattle And Hogs Overnight Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Down day on the cattle side and rather unchanged on hogs. Live cattle closed at 223.80, down two and a half bucks. Feeder cattle were down 590 at 339.350. Lean hogs kind of up and down across the board, mostly just an upward trend in most contracts up 23 cents at 83 and a half.

Grains Snapshot And Oil Check

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Well, quoting the markets here live with our quotes from plus 500, we saw just kind of a continuation of what we saw on the close yesterday overnight on the grain side of things. Deese corn is at 477. Sep beans are at 1166. Chicago wheat is at 656. The real interesting one is oil right now as I'm recording here live with my quotes from T4 from plus 500. Go ahead and shout them out real quick. Oil's right now at 8139, 37, going down just a little

Flooding Worries Across The Corn Belt

SPEAKER_00 1:37

bit. We'll have some more thoughts on that here in a sec, but I'd like to get to the weather because, man, it has been a rough one for the northern Corn Belt states, especially Indiana. Catastrophic flooding in southeast Indiana happened yesterday and kind of overnight. Radar estimates over a foot of rain has fallen near Newcastle and Henry County, with Wayne County also hit hard. Both counties are under travel warnings, restricting roads to emergency management vehicles only, and flood watches are now extended across central Iowa, northern Illinois, and Ohio. Man, it's going to have an effect on the crops out there and crop conditions 100%. There's going to be some parts of these fields that will be unharvestable come late fall, even with this amount of time to dry out. The fields are just incredibly saturated around here. I mean, I can't even walk in my lawn out here in northern Illinois. It's pretty spongy right now. The rest of the country, though, has seen some much needed rains. I got some Snapchats from the panhandle of Nebraska getting some much needed moisture there. In Colorado, we're finally getting a little bit of relief, even down in some Kansas, a little bit of the panhandle of Oklahoma as well.

WASDE Corn Yield Cut Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 2:55

The WASDI report came out yesterday, and you know, there were several charts that I could have brought up to discuss what happened here and what happened there. The big thing was that they cut the corn yield to like 180.1. That was the big one. And it was kind of contradictory to kind of some reports that came out earlier. The acreage went down, or the acreage went up down just slightly, and you know, the yield, that was the big cut. And it came from states like Nebraska. We discussed this more yesterday. We had a big roundtable discussion on the premium side of things, where me, Tommy, and Davis talked about the USDA. We call it the USDA data update

Packer Margins And Value Added Beef

SPEAKER_00 3:37

for a half hour, really breaking down what we saw and what we thought that meant for the future. That is on the premium side, though. It's a great discussion. It got tons of views from all of our subscribers and some pretty positive feedback. We would love to have you there. $25 or $250 annually at Agbull.com. On to the livestock discussion. Now, this chart here talks about Packer margins, and that's kind of estimated packer margins on beef feds or kind of a projection year over year change. That green line is like a 2014 to 2019 estimate. I can't really see it here. Let me see if I can pull it up closer. My screen, there is a lot to break down there. Yeah, it's a 17 to 19 average, that green line. Obviously, all the years past that are below that, and the blue one is where we're sitting at 2026. However, some are skeptical though, because I mean that's just the total cutout value that the packer receives. But as I was talking with some friends here recently, every single time a knife passes through a piece of meat, it gains value. The more time it gets spent being processed, it gains value. And it's at a rate that is pretty exponential. You know, if we're talking, you know, adding a value-added program to our beef, selling them with CAB or Nolan Ryan or some sort of fed beef program, you're looking at maybe, man, we can get maybe 10-20% growth on what we're going to see when we sell these things at Kill Day. Man, on a premium, all natural hot dog that's grass-fed and ethically raised, they're seeing like a hundred percent markup on the price of a hot dog. So whether the Packers bleeding or not, that is up for some discussion there.

Oil Demand Fears Meet Geopolitics

SPEAKER_00 5:28

On to the oil headline for today, and this is the big one. Oil prices drop as investors' way, falling demand against Middle East tension. The International Energy Agency said global oil demand is set to fall further than previously expected this year. Oman's coastline is apportedly being affected by a massive oil spill caused by a leaking tanker. Deadly attacks on the vessel in the Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea have pushed worries over supply distributions up another notch. It's interesting to see. Some say that we're going to see a lot of demand for oil this coming year and that fuel prices are continuing to go up because we just don't have the reserves that we once did. But at the same time, things like this make you think otherwise, especially when the price falls like it did overnight, about a buck and a half there. We'll make sure and keep you updated here on those outside markets here at Ag Bull.

Key Reports Today And Where To Watch

SPEAKER_00 6:24

On the economic calendar for today, the Conan came out already at 7 a.m. Export sales comes out here in a few minutes at 7.30. Same with the jobless claims and PPI. Natural gas storage change comes out at 9.30 a.m. Well, make sure to go ahead and follow us on our social medias. We're always putting up new content there. We'd like to live stream these episodes on X later in the day. So if you're just want to turn on your notifications for your X for Ag Bull, you can always get a daily update on when to watch. We're going to do 8 15 and 8 15 a.m. and P.M. is when we're going to live stream our episodes. So make sure and catch them there.

Closing Thoughts And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Well, that's all I have for you today. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening. I really enjoy getting to talk to you guys every day and putting together a show. It is the highlight of my day. If you have any things you'd like to see in the show or any comments or questions, make sure and leave them down below. Remember, I'm Jed Sidwell with Agble Media for a financial channel that loves agriculture. Have a great day.