Martin Perry

@robert_heath @shanaka86 Agreed. You think it's a surprize that US farmers need nitrogen for their crops in mid-March? Most of them will have bought it in Nov25, and have it dlvd already on-farm.

@shanaka86 Are you sure farmers don’t contract in advance for nitrogenous fertilizer? I’m not an expert but I’d be surprised if they didn’t, either directly with the vendor, or indirectly via futures markets. Maybe ask ChatGPT to follow up.

Right now, in barns and equipment sheds across the American Midwest, farmers are making the most consequential decision of this war. Not generals. Not senators. Farmers. At $683 per ton urea, corn economics have collapsed. Nitrogen is the single largest input cost for corn production. At pre-war prices a farmer could justify 180 pounds per acre and expect a margin. At $683 the math breaks. Soybeans fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere through root bacteria. They do not need the molecule trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz. The seed decision is being made this week across roughly 90 million acres of American cropland. Once the planter rolls into the field, the choice is irreversible. Corn seed in the ground stays corn. Soy seed stays soy. The acreage allocation locks in. USDA Prospective Plantings reports March 31. That report will tell the world how American agriculture responded to the Hormuz blockade. But the decisions it captures are being made now, in conversations between farmers and agronomists and seed dealers who are looking at nitrogen prices and making the rational economic choice: plant the crop that does not need the input you cannot afford. Every acre that shifts from corn to soybeans tightens the corn balance sheet for the rest of the year. Corn feeds livestock. Corn feeds ethanol. The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol annually, consuming roughly 43 percent of the US corn crop regardless of price. That demand is inelastic. If acres shift and production falls while the mandate holds, corn prices spike. Feed costs spike. The protein cascade reverses. The US cattle herd sits at 86.2 million head, a 75-year low. Poultry and pork margins that were benefiting from cheap feed compress when corn crosses $5 per bushel. This is how a naval blockade 7,000 miles from Iowa reaches the American grocery shelf. Not through oil. Not through shipping. Through nitrogen. The farmer cannot afford the molecule. The molecule cannot transit the strait. The farmer plants soy instead. The corn supply tightens. The ethanol mandate consumes its fixed share. The remaining corn reprices. The feed reprices. The meat reprices. The grocery bill reprices. The decision is not political. It is arithmetic performed on a kitchen table by a person who needs to plant in three weeks and cannot wait for a ceasefire, an escort convoy, or an insurance normalisation that the Red Sea precedent says takes years. The deepest penetrator in the American arsenal cannot reach a sealed Iranian doctrinal packet. But the fertiliser price it failed to resolve is reaching every planting decision on 90 million acres of the most productive farmland on Earth. The war’s most irreversible consequence is not happening in a bunker. It is happening in a barn. And by the time USDA publishes the data on March 31, the seeds will already be in the ground. Full analysis in the link. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

🇧🇷Cargill has paused soybean exports from Brazil to China due to the implementation of stricter sanitary inspections at the request of the Chinese government.

Latest SECAL Lecture @Churchers1722 from @Bartholomews

Cromwell seed oats being combined in East Ashling, West Sussex. Coming in at 60kg/hl! . . . #EastAshling #WestSussex #SeedOats #Agriculture #CropHarvest #OatProduction

Markets flat but likely found the bottom. Big yields + strong quality across the north. UK harvest 2 weeks early—early samples look great. Brief rain Tuesday, then more dry. Old crop still clogging movement—plan ahead if you need to shift grain! 🌾 #MondayMarketBriefing bartholomews.co.uk/monday-market-…

Market Insights + Open Days Join our Grain Team breakfast meetings for market trends & Q&A, then stay for Open Days! 📅 17th Jun|Lewes 8am→10am-2pm 📅 19th Jun|Porton 9am→10am-2pm 📅 25th Jun|Chalton 8am→10am-4pm Book early! bartholomews.co.uk/grain-events #GrainMarkets #OpenDays2025

🚜 Bartholomews 2025 Open Days 🌾 Join us for crop trials, expert advice, and agri-tech. 📍 Multiple sites | 🗓️ June 10–25 ✅ Secured your spot? bartholomews.co.uk/2025-open-days #BartholomewsOpenDays #SouthernFarming #AgriEvents2025 #FieldToFuture #FarmSmarter

@TheBlackSeal The loafers are a bit of a giveaway

Tell me you’re Dark ‘N Stormy® without telling me you’re Dark ‘N Stormy®

Anyone need a quick lesson about how Trump's tariffs (massive tax) will have a devastating impact on our economy, this 40 second clip from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" will explain it all:

Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response: "A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: * Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. * You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: 'My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."

Harvest 2024 milling wheat being loaded off farm with @bartsagri ready for the millers to make bread with. #bread #millingwheat #farming #food #farmingfood #foodlover #farmers #farmerscarry #transport #transportdesign

🌾 Shoreham Grain Hub 2025 – Save the Date! 🚜 Join us for key grain market insights & networking! 📈✨ 📅 April 10, 2025 | 📍 The White Swan, Arundel | ⏰ 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM 🍽 Free lunch! Limited spaces—register now! 🔗bartholomews.co.uk/grain-hub-sign… #Agriculture #GrainTrading

🌾 Boost yields & profits with Group 3 soft wheat! Learn how to optimise nitrogen for 11.5% protein, tap into premium markets, and explore smarter storage solutions. Don’t miss these expert insights for Harvest 2025! Full guide: bartholomews.co.uk/insights/group… #WheatHarvest #FarmingTips

This season, new high-yielding soft wheat varieties like Bamford challenge farmers to apply enough nitrogen to achieve 11.5% protein for premium export markets. For 10 MT/ha yield, 250-280 kg N/ha is needed. Full report: bartholomews.co.uk/insights/group…

Here's a 🎶 twist on @coldplay's thumping #VivaLaVida we're calling "Puppets on a Kremlin String?" It reflects on the grotesque disrespectful media spectacle hosted by #Trump & #Vance yesterday at the White House. In solidarity with @ZelenskyyUa 🇺🇦 #SlavaUkraini #Dontabandonthem

@Rainmaker1973 @Wheatdude Nothing compared to Marnhull

Rival otter clans fighting over territory in Singapore.

We use growing season rainfall figures to help us with our crop production forecasts, and we are already seeing a difference between this year and last year in Ukraine. blackseacropforecasts.com

@bouta_nt @burgess_ag That is definitely you in Episode 1

@burgess_ag Photo shopped

@bouta_nt well well well, what have we here… next Hugh Jackman

Too wet for too long...French #wheat crop conditions have dropped to record-low for recent years #oatt #agwx

Our last week of #grainmarketing Breakfast Meetings. Tues 25thJune – Singing Hills GC, Muddleswood. Weds 26th June – The Bear, Hungerford. Call 01243755650 to book a place, or see this week’s report. bartholomews.co.uk/news/monday-ma…