A nine-and-a-half-hour drive from Illinois to Nebraska is a regular day in the life for corn and soybean farmer Mark Tuttle. Five days a week, the DeKalb County native transports seeds and other agricultural products, his workdays sometimes nearing 12 hours on the road. Despite receiving his first USDA MFP payment, Tuttle told ABC News that many farmers within his community depend on side businesses to earn additional income. (ABC News)

Major manufacturers like John Deere are feeling the impact of extreme weather and the ongoing trade on the ag industry. Caterpillar says sales of tractors and combines have been down during the first half of the year. Extreme weather in the Midwest, delaying harvest, and the ongoing trade war has kept Illinois farmers like Phil Fuhr from buying new equipment this season. (CNBC)

President Trump today signed the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, which is an important step forward with U.S. agriculture’s fourth-largest export market. The Japan bilateral agreement keeps intact essentially all the trade benefits the United States would have gained in Japan under TPP. AFBF has further analysis concerning the agreement here. (Farm Bureau)

Many farmers hoped for some additional heat units in September to help late-planted crops catch up on maturity. And most got just that. The statewide temperature last month averaged a steamy 71.3 degrees, nearly 5 degrees warmer than the long-term average. (FarmWeekNow)

Today’s tough economic times are affecting farmers’ bottom lines. How to cope? Here are some ideas from four farmers: Use technology wisely, sell direct to end users, don’t forget carbon markets, integrate data and manage policy-induced policy. Elaboration available at Successful Farming.

The U.S. on Wednesday said it would slap 10% tariffs on European-made Airbus planes and 25% duties on French wine, Scotch and Irish whiskies, and cheese from across the continent as punishment for illegal EU aircraft subsidies. The announcement came after the World Trade Organization gave Washington a green light to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of EU goods annually in the long-running case. (Reuters)