Market Overview
Wheat / Barley / Maize
Ongoing Black Sea supplies continue to weigh on global wheat prices.
Russian wheat remains very competitive for European Markets. Ukraine exports are also going well with reports suggesting the country has exported 5.2MT of Agricultural goods through the Black Sea in February.
The current challenging wet weather is currently affecting most areas all over Europe. Projections suggest the EU-27 wheat crop will shrink by 2.5% to 122MT in 2024. Weather progress will be key to final cropped areas and yield potential.
The UK wheat crop is projected at 12MT, down from 14MT last year. However, there are fears this could be a repeat of 2020 and be down as low as 9MT.
Grain markets are still reactive to any updates on South American weather & supply potential.
Brazil’s maize planting has progressed rapidly. As of 23rd February, the maize crop was 73% planted compared to 56% seen this time last year.
Brazil’s maize crop is currently projected between 114MT to 124MT. The uncertainty is due to lowering maize prices and the window for farmers to plant maize coming to an end mid march.
The USDA currently projects Brazil & Argentina to produce a record crop of 179MT. If realised this could influence the wider grain markets going forward.
Hi Pro Soya / Rapemeal
According to AgRural, Brazil’s soybean harvest is at 48% complete compared to 40% at this point last year.
The USDA February projections have the Brazil soybean production at 156MT. Many private forecasters still believe this figure to be very ambitious and expect the figure to be closer to 150MT. It will be interesting to see if the USDA cut their projections in Fridays WASDE report for March.
Argentina’s soybean harvest is not expected to start until next month with projections at 50MT.
For the short term, supplies remain tight until new crop Soya arrives sometime in April/May.
For rapeseed, the short term focus is on EU crop conditions, with total EU production expected to reduce year-on-year.
Strategie Grains project an 18.7MT crop in the EU, down 7% from last year. The UK crop is estimated at 800-900,000 tonnes, with AHDB survey data indicating that acreage is down 19%.
Potential of large global soybean supplies could weigh on rapeseed prices going forward.
