Sunflower Highlights

Post Date: Mar 16 2020

North Dakota county sunflower election results

North Dakota county sunflower representatives were elected in two of the state’s seven sunflower districts last month. All county reps are now eligible for the district election and to serve on the NSA’s Board of Directors for a three-year term. Bruce Speich was elected county representative for Sargent county and the only county representative in District 3. Speich will serve as the District 3 representative on the NSA Board of Directors. Voters in District 2 will elect a district representative on Wednesday, March 25 at 1:00 p.m. at the Country Kitchen in Casselton, ND. Candidates include:

Steele county: Brady Palmer, Sharon
Barnes county: Anthony Thilmony, Valley City
Griggs county: Scott Tranby, Cooperstow

Heggen takes the helm at Stratas Foods

Erik Heggen has been named the new chief executive officer of Stratas Foods LLC, a joint venture between Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) and ACH Food Companies.. He replaces Tedd Kruse, who assumed the role of president of ADM earlier this month. Heggen joined ADM in 2001 and has held a variety of positions with the company since.

Canada approves USMCA Agreement

Canada on Friday formally approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), taking the last legislative step to implementation of the deal to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Having a USMCA agreement in place is great news for sunflower products as oil, meal, in-shell seed and kernel will maintain duty free access to Canadian and Mexican markets. Canada is the largest export market for U.S. sunflower oil and sunflower kernel. Mexico is the second largest export market for U.S. sunflower oil, in-shell seed and kernel.

Reserve your room for Summer Seminar

This year’s NSA Summer Seminar will be held June 23, 24 and 25 in Spearfish, South Dakota. A block of rooms has been reserved at the Spearfish Holiday Inn. Standard rooms are $124.99 plus tax; suites are $154.99 plus tax; pool side rooms are an additional $30 per night plus tax. To make your reservation, click here. Use the group code NSA. The program is being finalized now and registration will open soon. Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with questions.

Deadline for NSA Scholarship approaching

There is still time to submit applications for the National Sunflower Association’s Curtis Stern Memorial Scholarship. Preference will be given to students who are in their last two years of undergraduate studies or in graduate level studies and have maintained at least a cumulative 3.0 GPA on a 4.0=A scale. Application deadline is April 1, 2020. A total of $5,000 is available for the scholarship this year. Applications can be submitted online. Click here to learn more. Contact Tina Mittelsteadt at tinam@sunflowernsa.com with any questions.

March/April issue of The Sunflower coming soon

The March/April 2020 issue of The Sunflower will be arriving in your mailbox soon. This is the final issue of the 2019-2020 magazine year, but we are always looking for story ideas and we are already planning for next year. If you have a story idea, give us a call or click here to submit them online.

Upcoming Events

March 17, 2020
SDSU 2020 Agronomy Update, Pierre, SD

June 23-25, 2020
NSA Summer Seminar, Spearfish, SD

Markets

Nearby NuSun and High Oleic prices set new market highs at the North Dakota crush plants this week gaining 40 cents.Considering oil premiums that are offered at the crush plants on oil content above 40% at a rate of 2% price premium for each 1% of oil above 40%; this pushes a seed delivery with 45% oil content gross return 10% higher per cwt. A $20.95 March price increases to $23.00 with the oil premium added in. South America continues to make good harvest progress and weather conditions are favorable for producing a record soybean crop. According to the latest USDA supply and demand report released last week, South American soybean production could be a bin-buster this year. For Brazil, USDA is projecting the 2019/20 crop will reach 4.629 billion bushels. In Argentina, the crop could amount to 1.984 billion bushels. Both estimates came in higher than the average trade guess. The U.S. stockpiles of corn and soybean remain unchanged from February’s estimate, according to the USDA. CBoT commodity prices have been on the defensive, following financial and energy markets lower as the world braces for the potential economic ill effects of the coronavirus outbreak. The spillover weakness from a broad range of other commodities is expected to continue affecting commodity trading until the spread of the coronavirus outbreak slows and is somewhat under control.

Weekly Prices Recorded on Monday, March 16, 2020 ($/CWT)

	Deliver	Last Year	Last Week	This Week	Change	2020 NEW Crop
Chicago Oil	Nearby	29.44	27.31	24.99	-2.32	26.25
West Fargo, ND	NuSun	17.45	20.35	20.75	+.40	18.10
West Fargo, ND	High Oleic	17.45	20.55	20.95	+.40	18.25
Enderlin, ND	NuSun	17.20	20.20	20.60	+.40	17.85
Enderlin, ND	High Oleic	17.45	20.40	20.80	+.40	18.25
Goodland, KS	NuSun	16.65	18.75	18.75	NC	18.25
Goodland, KS	High Oleic	17.75	19.50	19.50	NC	19.40

Prices recorded here are believed to be reliable at the time of posting. All prices are subject to change. Contact these facilities for complete market details.

U.S. CRUDE OIL VALUES recorded on Monday, March 16, 2020
(dollars per 100 lb. internal U.S. location)

	Last Year	Last Week	This Week	Change
Soybean Oil	28.44	27.44	24.49	-2.95
Cotton Oil (psby)	35.44	36.31	33.99	-2.32
Corn Oil	30.00	39.00	39.00	NC