India is busy importing wheat after reducing their 15% import tariff to zero. This comes on the back of an increase in production by Government officials for last season’s wheat crop, lifting it to 93.5 million tonnes versus an industry estimate closer to 86 million tonnes. It is also interesting to note that government accumulation is only 23mt this year versus 28mt the previous year. Indian officials also stated that there is expected to be a 11.5% increase in the area currently being sown to wheat.
With the Indian MET department predicting a warmer winter it has many worried about a dry finish to the crop in March. Wheat is sown around the same time as chickpeas in India.

Tunisia picked up 50kt of durum wheat in a tender yesterday. It’s an optional origin order and prices are yet to be made available if they are at all.

Some interesting planting numbers coming out of France. Soft wheat area flat, durum back 2.1% and rapeseed back 5%. The northern regions saw the largest reduction in oilseed sowings. It is expected that Ukraine production increases will fill this hole but it still results the current S&D for canola feeling a little more bullish than bearish.