Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced that USDA’s new market news web portal is on line and providing instant, real-time access to daily and historical reports on agricultural commodities. The new portal is at: http://marketnews.usda.gov.

Yes it is but it took me a minute after clicking on that link to realize that it’s just fruit and vegetable market news for now. If I had read through the whole release I would have seen that “livestock and grain market news will be available Oct. 3 and other commodities will soon follow.” I see a link, I click.

Anyway, right now you can find reports on strawberries, dry onions and iceberg lettuce!

Hey, you can even create what amounts to a “My USDA Market News” account, “Customers who register and create an account on the Web site can log into the portal and create their own market summary charts to provide snapshots of commodity prices based on location and dates.”

I wonder when we’ll be able to subscribe to the RSS feed of these reports and get them on our mobile phones?