Country News
Africa: Maize trades duty free within the East African Community and the combination of good local crops and imports from Uganda has caused Kenyan maize flour prices to fall to their lowest level since 2012. Meanwhile, the Ugandan farmers supplying the maize say that the harvest is so good that prices are below their cost of production. The World Food Program will tender for 50 KMT of maize from smallholder farms in Tanzania as much as possible. And finally, The African Development Bank estimates that Zambia’s maize production for 2017/18 is down 33 percent due to army worm damage. (WPI)
Argentina: Land area typically planted to sorghum is instead seeding over to corn and wheat. (AgriCensus)
Brazil: Dry weather has enabled the harvesting of the second corn crop to reach 83 percent. Corn exports have slowed as shipping soybeans to China has become a larger activity. (Bloomberg; AgriCensus)
Chile: The Economy Ministry is studying the implementation of temporary import restrictions on wheat and corn during the harvest. (AgriCensus)
China: Corn futures experienced their largest one day jump since May after the central government said that it would promote the use of ethanol in vehicles. The Dalian exchange’s most active corn contract hit ¥1,892 ($275.24)/MT. Meanwhile, China imported 220 KMT of sorghum in July, down 62.5 percent from the 588 KMT imported in the same month a year ago. Corn imports were down a similar 63.7 percent. Meanwhile, the weekly corn auction saw a higher price and larger volume. The auction sold 850 KMT at an average price of ¥1,433/MT. (Reuters)
France: The corn crop is believed to have deteriorated further due to storms. (AgriCensus)
South Africa: Japan bought 27 KMT of South African corn but the pace of the nation’s exports has begun to slow. In part this is due to ports switching their infrastructure to handle wheat imports. (AgriCensus)
Thailand: Agriculture Minister Grisada Boonrach is encouraging farmers to plant corn instead of rice to improve their profitability. Off-season rice production nets about ฿Bt12,375 ($376.76)/Ha whereas corn for animal feed earns ฿31,250 ($951.42)/Ha. (The Nation)
Turkey: The Turkish Grain Board (TMO) has been given authority through May 2019 to import 700 KMT of corn and 700 KMT of barley at duty-free rates. (WPI)
Ukraine: The lack of demand is causing corn prices to further erode. Separately, the volume of wheat headed toward the feed market is 55 percent of production. (AgriCensus; Reuters)