Another holiday in the USA, Presidents Day this time, saw the US markets closed so no new settlement values from ICE or CME futures markets this morning.

ABARES has come out with a revised Australian wheat number of 17.3mt, 340kt higher than their last estimate. Reductions in NSW and QLD were countered by increases in WA and SA. Western Australia was increased to 10.15mt while NSW came in at just 1.8mt.
ABARES also found some extra barley and increased national production to 8.3mt, thanks to WA.
Canola productions was reduced further with just 2.2mt being harvested in 2018 representing a fall of 40% year on year.
Using current demand for wheat on the east coast of Australia and WA export potential to international destinations of 6mt it is plausible that by wheat harvest 2019 Australia could have as little as 1mt of domestic reserves left in stock.

French wheat development continues to lag as a dry autumn has rolled into a dry winter. Although winter wheat crop condition rating are still acceptable they are at the lower end of expectations. A look at the 90 day rainfall anomaly from World Ag Weather shows that the worst hit regions continue to be central France and the SE. Central France on average produces around 16% of the nation’s wheat. When taking in the surrounding regions production we see around 25% of the crop is likely to be in less than ideal condition.