Country News
Argentina: A damaging hot and dry December in the Pampas has been replaced with a wet January, and further forecasts call for the trend to continue into February, according to Reuters. However, the drought-like conditions have already caused irreversible damnage to the 2013/2014 corn crop. An analyst at the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange estimates this year’s corn crop at 20 MMT.
China: Chinese corn imports in the year to September are predicted to fall by 30 percent from earlier estimates because of the rejection of U.S. cargoes containing an unapproved GM strain, reports Reuters. The Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. Ltd has forecast that China will import 4.4 MMT of corn this marketing year, which is down from an estimate made last month of 6.6 MMT. China imported 2.7 MMT of corn in the previous marketing year and has rejected 600,000 MT of U.S. corn since November. USDA predicts that China will import 7 MMT of corn this year.
France: French barley exports in November 2013 fell to 122,599 MT, which is a 9.9 percent reduction from the November 2012 total of 311,258 MT. Corn shipments have also slipped by 0.7 percent to total some 625,660 MT.
Japan: The Ministry of Agriculture has announced that it will import 600 MT of feed wheat and 14,200 MT of barley from a simultaneous buy and sell auction that closed on Wednesday. The ministry had sought to purchase 120,000 MT of feed wheat and 200,000 MT of barley. It will be seeking these same amounts in another auction to be held on January 15.