Country News
China: The Agriculture Ministry forecasts a larger corn deficit for 2017/18 to 4.31 MMT after reducing the production amount by 2.38 MMT and increasing the expected consumption by 1.05 MMT. Top corn producing province Heilongjiang will reduce the subsidy to farmers by 13 percent to 133.46 yuan ($20.30) per mu (0.067 hectares). However, Zhang Dalong of COFCO Futures expects farmers to still plant corn because it is more profitable. (Bloomberg; Reuters)
Ukraine: USDA/FAS forecasts that Ukrainian barley production will be down 11 percent this year compared to last (to 8.6 MMT). The crop is losing out in production area to wheat due to equivalent production costs but 25 percent lower yields. Meanwhile, the corn harvest is 20 percent complete but at a total of 27.2 MMT, the final crop will be 3 percent smaller than last year. (World Grain)