Flooding in the Midwest impacting ethanol facilities has reduced ethanol production by 13 percent in the United States. Plants in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Missouri were forced to shut down or scale back production during and following the flooding. Rail lines are washed out, hampering the transportation of products to and from ethanol plants. Some have damaged facilities or soaked stored corn, and local roads need repair around the facilities. The U.S. has some 200 ethanol plants capable of producing 1.06 million barrels per day, and about 100,000 to 140,000 barrels per day of capacity has been taken off line due to the floods, according to Reuters. Nebraska officials say crop damage in the state will exceed $400 million. The flooding disaster comes as the industry is in the midst of low prices and demand falling for the first time in 20 years.

An abundance of moisture across the United States has greatly diminished the Drought Monitor’s findings of drought across the nation. Just this week, officials declared California “drought free” for the first time in seven years. There are no areas of extreme, or exceptional drought classifications in the nation, and very few cases of severe drought. However, dryness intensified across parts of the South, while the overall trend toward drought recovery continued in the Four Corners region. Elsewhere, dryness concerns increased in the Northwest where drought expanded slightly. Most of the nation from the central and northern Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast remained free of drought, with severe flooding the primary concern in the nation’s heartland. Over the next week, an unsettled weather pattern will continue over much of the nation. A pair of Pacific storms are expected to bring relief to the Northwest and northern Rockies. As the system marches east, it will produce rain and snow from the central Plains into the Midwest, though the Upper Midwest will remain dry.

The Department of Agriculture will release it’s shortlist of potential spots for relocating the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture “in the coming days.” USDA is working towards deciding on the final relocation spots by early May, according to Politico. An official from USDA told Congress this week that, under the plan, the Economic Research Service would keep 76 jobs in Washington and relocate 253 positions, while the National Institute of Food and Agriculture would retain just 20 employees in Washington, D.C., and move 315 to the new site. However, those numbers are based on currently appropriated positions. President Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget calls for cutting the full-time ERS workforce in half, from about 330 positions to 160. USDA will also provide a cost-benefit analysis with the final recommendation. USDA maintains that taxpayers would benefit from the proposal because USDA would save money on rent by moving outside of the nation’s capital. The agency also says employees would benefit from shorter commute times and lower housing prices.

In a statement by the American Soybean Association, leadership of the organization say the group “is not pleased” with recent comments by the President regarding tariffs and the China trade talks. President Trump has suggested that he could leave tariffs in place under an agreement with China. However, ASA considers the removal of tariffs on China part of an exchange for China to lift its retaliatory 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybean imports. ASA president Davie Stephens questioned, “How can the U.S. and China reach any deal without doing so?” ASA in prior statements said “it’s not enough for China to make one-off good will purchases,” of U.S. soybeans over the last three months. Any longer-term plan to manage soybean trade under which China would guarantee to buy specified amounts of soybeans over an extended period—but still keep its 25 percent tariff in place—”is not an acceptable alternative to full market access,” according to ASA.

President Donald Trump wants lawmakers to move quickly to approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The USMCA, Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, is currently being navigated through procedural hurdles before the administration can present the final proposed agreement to Congress. Lawmakers must consider the agreement on a simple yes or no vote, with no amendments, with Trade Promotion Authority in effect. Politico reports Trump told House Republicans in a meeting this week the administration is preparing for a vote on the agreement before the summer, but a vote by the end of the year is a more likely timeline. Although, a vote is allowed to happen sometime after the U.S. International Trade Commission submits its analysis of the economic impact of the deal on April 19th. The USMCA agreement is considered Trump’s top legislative policy in 2019, before election-year politics muddy the path forward in 2020.

A report from Plantalytics says current conditions in the Corn Belt leave 55 percent of the nation’s corn acreage at risk of flooding. Plantalytics is a business weather intelligence firm. The firm reports that major flooding throughout the United States leaves 55 percent of corn acres at risk, along with 60 percent of the nation’s soybean acres to be planted this spring. Thousands of acres have already been inundated with flood waters along the Missouri River, and some will not be used to produce a crop this season. The report follows a forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, depicting at-risk areas this spring. The Missouri and Mississippi River, throughout nearly all of their length, are at risk for major or moderate flooding. NOAA has much of the eastern U.S. at risk for minor flooding, along with the south and Midwest. The report from Plantalytics based its data on 2018 production of corn and soybeans.