Just a thought on US corn acres, they are down, or will be according to the USDA report on Thursday. This prompted a move higher in futures on Thursday which was countered last night with some downside, leaving corn futures at Chicago lower week on week.
In the US they have a Revenue Protection Insurance program (RP). The value of which is calculated using the average December CME corn futures value in February and the farm average yields and the new crop futures price in October and final farm income. The difference of which can be paid depending on the level of coverage taken. This February the Dec avg was 590c/bu, the question is will this be enough to drag country that wouldn’t normally go into corn, into corn, in an attempt to potentially grow a low input cost, low yielding crop and to top up with some crop insurance ?

Ukraine have reportedly sown 603kha of spring sown grains. This is good progress but officially the area under spring crop is expected to decline significantly, some say as much as 50% of last year’s 15mha. The area under higher input cost crops like corn and sunflowers is expected to be reduced, while the area of spring barley, feed crops, and legumes is expected to increase. Ukraine continues to suspend exports out of the Black Sea.

India is expected to export around 72.6kt of wheat to Vietnam in April. This is on top of exports sales of 270kt to S.Korea during March. The list of Asian buyers for Indian wheat continues to grow. The Philippines were also reported to have been on the list. Indian wheat exports have increased to 5.96mt year on year (April > Jan), compared to 1.2mt for the same period last year. It isn’t all down to Black Sea issues though, Australia has also struggled with logistics, potentially missing sales into Asian consumers.