Country News
Canada: StatsCanada estimates this year’s barley crop at 8.2 MMT, a 15 percent increase over 2014 though that year saw a smaller-than-trend crop.
China: China Grain Reserves Corp (Sinograin) may begin selling corn out of reserves as early as this month that is both out of condition and below the cost of acquisition. (Reuters)
India: Negative returns are starting to reduce poultry production though not before the downstream effect of some feed millers being unable to pay their input suppliers. (WPI)
South Africa: Some analysts are concerned that South Africa may lack sufficient infrastructure to handle the potential for 4 MMT of corn imports, on top of other incoming grains. Complicating the drought is the sluggish South African economy, which caused the rand to drop against the dollar. A weak rand spiked the value of white corn up 3.2 percent to $256/MT; yellow corn rose 1.3 percent. (Bloomberg)
Ukraine: The Minister of Agriculture signed a non-binding agreement with the trade on the amount of exports to be allowed. The campaign will involve 16 MMT of corn and 3.9 MMT of barley. Through luck or some other factor, the previous year’s agreement pretty much matched the actual trade.