Looking for bullish news at the moment is a bit like probing for moisture back in winter, it’s there but you really need to pull up at the right spot to find it.
US wheat futures were flat to firmer, corn was even flatter to softer and soybeans were lower on the back of big US acre projections from Informa Economics. In the same report Informa pegged all US wheat acres for 2018-19 at an all time low of just 44.66 million acres. This is down from 46 million acres this year.
The Australian crop is expected to come in at 21mt once it’s all said and done. Exports will fall to about 16mt for Australia, a 40% reduction on 2016-17.
Indian Rabi (winter crop) sowing is almost complete with a total area of 54.1m/ha sown to date. Chickpeas area has increased by almost 10% on last year while wheat area is back around 3%. There has been light patchy rain over the major Indian wheat and chickpea region over the last 30 days but generally the chickpea region is looking better than the wheat area. Water reserves in India are much better than the previous two years and should see the chickpea crop reach it’s full potential depending on harvest weather.
Russia and the Ukraine have seen some very useful rainfall over the last 30 days putting winter crops in good shape for winter.
In the US there is talk of potential winter freeze damage in some parts of the south, just the normal scares for this time of year but something to keep an eye on over the next week or so.