By Michael Hirtzer

(Reuters) – The Humane Society on Tuesday accused two pig-breeding facilities, one of which supplies retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc, of mistreating the animals by confining sows in cages during pregnancy.

In a video on the Humane Society website, sows can been seen chewing the metal bars of their cages and struggling to stand up. Some are scratched, bleeding and even dead.

CHENOA, Illinois (Reuters) – Farmer Brian Schaumburg has planted corn for five straight years in some of the thousands of acres he tends in central Illinois.

Farmers who eschew crop rotations that help to replenish the soil with nutrients take a risk that yields will decline. But corn prices soared to a record earlier this year, making so-called corn-on-corn crops a worthwhile bet for many farmers in Illinois, the No. 2 U.S. corn state after Iowa.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – North Dakota wheat farmer Terry Weckerly applied extra fertilizer to his wheat this summer to coax more protein out of the crop. Flour mills and grain elevators were paying near-record premiums for high-protein wheat and he wanted a slice of it.

The fertilizer worked too well. Weckerly and other spring wheat farmers are harvesting a crop with protein content of more than 15 percent. The protein-richest crop in five years has led to those high premiums evaporating.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Corn futures rose to a one-week high on Thursday as the government downgraded the corn crop by 4 percent after record-high heat in July sapped yield potential in the prime Midwest growing region.

Soybeans also surged, posting their biggest daily bounce since May, after the Department of Agriculture also cut its soy crop forecast more than expected.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Mouse ears in the mud. It seemed a fitting end to the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza, the three-day music festival that started under warm, sunny skies but ended on Sunday night in a rainy dance party.

The Canadian progressive dance music artist deadmau5 — pronounced like “dead mouse” — was one of two headliners, along with the Foo Fighters, to close out of the event.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Lollapalooza, the giant rock festival celebrating its 20th anniversary with three days of music starting on Friday in Chicago, is set to expand to its second South American event next year in Sao Paulo.

“If we can rub elbows with the Brazilians, who knows what Lollapalooza will be like. They have a long, storied history of partying,” said Perry Farrell, who founded the festival in 1991 as a farewell tour for his band, Jane’s Addiction.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains.

Nearly 38 percent of the Midwest was “abnormally dry” as of August 2, the climatologists said in a weekly report, the most since December 2008.

CHICAGO, July 13 (Reuters) – U.S. ethanol production fell
3.5 percent while stocks climbed in the latest reporting week,
despite profitable margins at many biofuel refineries.

Ethanol output totaled 872,000 barrels per day (bpd) for
the week ended July 8, down 32,000 bpd from the previous week
but 6 percent higher than the same week a year ago, according
to the Energy Information Administration’s weekly petroleum
report released on Wednesday.

CHICAGO, June 6 (Reuters) – Warm and dry conditions
provided a window for farmers in the eastern U.S. Corn Belt to
catch up on corn plantings last week but seedings remained
behind schedule, especially in Ohio where only about half of
the crop was in the ground.

The U.S. Agriculture Department late on Monday put corn
plantings at 94 percent complete, below the five-year average
pace of 98 percent, leaving about 5.5 million acres (2.2
million hectares) of the projected 92.2 million yet to be
seeding.

CHICAGO, April 14 (Reuters) – Farm equipment maker Agco
Corp (AGCO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) may top its own first-quarter earnings outlook
when it reports the results later this month, the company’s
chief executive said on Thursday.

“I think everything is pretty much in line,” Agco Chief
Executive Martin Richenhagen told reporters in Chicago.