The Chicago Board of Trade membership has voted to add one hour to its trading day by opening at 8:30 a.m. Chicago time instead of 9:30. Closing time would remain unchanged at 1:15 p.m. The 2,100 full and associate members approved the change yesterday (Wednesday). It still needs an OK by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The proposal has been debated within the exchange for more than a year. CBOT Chairman Pat Arbor says the additional hour would provide more opportunities for international trade.
Says Arbor: 'You can't trade when you're not open, and to carry the analogy a step further, customers in either case will go elsewhere to get what they need. I don't want to see wheat quotes from London or Paris or some exchange not yet established.'
Opponents said the additional hour would increase their expenses.NEWLN: -27- Farmland value up only slightly
University of Illinois agricultural economist John Scott says he's a little perplexed by the patterns of land value changes in the past year. But he says the overall findings of an Agriculture Department survey confirm his prediction that farmland nationally may be losing value in real-dollar terms.
Scott says he is most puzzled by the Agriculture Department's conclusion that farmland in Illinois showed no change in price during the past year. That would mean that, adjusted for inflation, Illinois had a decline in value of a little more than 2 percent.
Nationally, the USDA survey showed a 2 percent increase in farmland values.
Scott says the conclusions are puzzling because farmland in states surrounding Illinois, including Iowa, showed a small to moderate increase in value. He says he can't figure out why Iowa and Illinois would experience such different land value changes.
But while he is a bit perplexed by the Illinois disparities, Scott thinks the national trend picked up by the USDA study is correct. He says: 'Last winter, I predicted that farmland prices are not likely to rise faster than the rate of inflation over the next 10 years. In fact, the real price of land may decline.'
He says that decline can be traced to continuing problems with overproduction and weak commodity prices.NEWLN: -27- USDA's new pepper strain hot in more ways than one!
A spicy new variety of cayenne pepper developed by government seed scientists in Charleston, S.C., has proved hotter than even they could have imagined. The new variety, called Charleston Hot, is hot both in the spicy sense -- 20 times hotter than a jalapeno -- and in the popularity sense -- with more than 24,000 requests for seeds despite only limited publicity.
Said co-developer Philip Dukes, 'We never envisioned the number of requests we would get after we announced last February that the seed was available.'
He said the Agricultural Rsearch Lab at Charleston was buried in requests for seeds and only filled the 24,000 by substituting a sister strain, Carolina Cayenne, when the supply of Charleston Hot ran out.
Dukes said a relatively obscure Agriculture Department news release and a story in a departmental magazine -- picked up by wire services -- led to contacts from 28 newspapers and magazines, 45 radio stations and 10 television stations around the world.
Dukes developed the pepper with colleague Richard L. Fery. The director of the Charleston lab, Claude Thomas, said the seed will be available commercially next year from South Carolina Foundation Seed Inc. at Clemson University.NEWLN: -27- AMA blasts cigarette ads
The American Medical Association said yesterday (Wednesday) it wants the Federal Trade Commission to stop cigarette makers from 'targeting' ads to young people. AMA President John Clowe and Surgeon General Antonia Novello also criticized tobacco companies for ads that cartoon- characters who appeal to children.
Clowe demanded federal action during a Washington news conference to name the winners of an AMA-sponsored contest for the best children's poem, letter, essay or poster telling 'Old Joe Camel' why he should stop smoking.
The contest winners included: Alice May Davis, a second-grade student from Ramona, Calif., who wrote a letter about how smoking caused her grandfather to wheeze; Roger Lukas, a fifth grader from Ocala, Fla., who painted a poster spoof of a cigarette ad, and; Adrian Carson, an eighth- grade student from Decatur, Ill., who drew a picture showing reasons for not smoking.NEWLN: -27- Frito-Lay to sponsor country music tour
One of the nation's highest-visibility consumer corn products is hooking up with country music in a joint promotion effort. Texas-based Frito-Lay, Inc. announced yesterday (Wednesday) its flagship product, Fritos, will sponsor a national concert series featuring country music star Billy Ray Cyrus.
The concert series will start tonight (Thursday) in Birmingham, Ala., and continue through the year's end with stops in more than 30 markets from Hartford, Conn. to Sacramento, Calif. In addition to the tour, the new marketing program includes an advertising campaign featuring rising country star Mark Chesnutt and the introduction of a new tagline, 'I Know What I Like...and I Like Fritos.'
Frito-Lay product manager Steve Sears says the tie-in with country music will make Fritos more 'contemporary.'NEWLN: -27- Purdue names interim ag dean
Purdue University looked within its own ranks for interim leadership while it seeks a permanent replacement for Agriculture Dean Robert L. Thompson.
The Purdue School of Agriculture announced yesterday (Wednesday) that Executive Associate Dean Victor Lechtenberg (LECK'-tehn-burg), will become interim dean, effective July 1. Lechtenberg has been a member of the Purdue faculty since 1971.
He will run the school while a committee searches for a successor to Thompson, who is leaving July 1 to become president of Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development. Purdue President Steven Beering is expected to appoint the search committee by mid-June.NEWLN: -27- (end farming today)
