Country News
Argentina: World Weather, Inc. does not believe that Argentina will experience the kind of drought it suffered last year, though there will be pockets of dryness to keep an eye on. Key will be the timing of the passing of the solar minimum, which should occur early in 2019. (AgriCensus)
Brazil: Dryness in southern Brazil has crop observers thinking this may be the end to multi-year bumper crops in South America. However, World Weather, Inc. does not think so since this El Nino has not caused the kind of events experienced in the past such as wetness in ANZUS and drought in other parts of Southeast Asia. (AgriCensus)
China: The African Swine Fever problems has expanded, hitting 100 separate infections. The virus has now spread to large, modern industrial farms and the government has instituted a testing requirement before animals can be sold on the market. Separately, Beijing has added a countervailing duty investigation on top of an earlier antidumping case against barley from Australia. (Reuters)
Russia: Feed production has been expanding for more than two decades and the pattern is likely to continue. The federal government has been supplying a record amount of state aid to the industry (three times the average allocated during 2012 to 2018). Lawmakers are also considering renewing freight subsidies to grain. The Russian Union of Feed Producers (RUFP) believes production will continue to increase on a 3.5 percent to 4 percent (1.5 to 2.0 MMT) annual rate. The expansion caused feed grain prices to decline in 2017 for the first time in 15 years. The Russian Agricultural Ministry says there is still an imbalance in the protein and amino acid composition of the feed, causing livestock feed conversion to lag behind that in the European Union. Feed additives must be imported. The RUFP sees future feed exports, focusing on organic/clean feed movement. (World-Grain)
South Africa: The South African Grain Information Service reports that corn stocks have fallen due to rising domestic demand. (AgriCensus)
Taiwan: MFIG bought corn from Brazil at $212.39/MT. (AgriCensus)
Tunisia: The change up in the government’s tenders reflect the rising price of wheat and the fall in barley prices. (AgriCensus)
Ukraine: Corn exports hit nearly 1 MMT the last week of December and the month ended as the busiest and largest volume (3.12 MMT) of exports on record. Barley exports remained 17 percent lower than last year’s level. (AgriCensus)
Uruguay: The area planted to corn is up 52 percent, largely replacing soybean plantings. (Reuters)