I decided to kick off the trading game with information from the USDA website (1). I found their report titled “World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE)” particularly useful as it provided summarized, up-to-date information (as of September 12) on the production, supplies, consumption and exports of a wide array of food commodities. Although I did not read into it too much, the information provided is not limited to the U.S.; rather it is presented with ample references to the major producing and exporting countries for each commodity. Given also, that this information is released on a monthly basis, I found it helpful for making short run decisions.
Another website I came across was the The Crop Site (2). It is one of many agricultural commodity sites like The Pig Site, The Beef Site and so on, which share news stories and insightful analysis of these markets. In addition to updating the reader on weather, currency and other such news, The Crop Site articles summarize data from USDA and other sources that may otherwise be challenging for a newbie to assimilate. I think I will be following this one quite religiously; if only they had an android app, I’d be too cool for school.