Country News
EU: ADM Germany has announced that the European Union’s corn crop is expected to total some 70.46 MMT, which is a substantial increase over last year’s 64.48 MMT, According to Reuters.
Iraq: The United Nations has estimated that the Islamic State now controls substantial portions of Iraq’s grain growing regions and that their advance forced many farmers to flee their land in the midst of the barley harvest, reports Reuters. Iraq’s Ministry of Agriculture has also expressed concern about next year’s barley crop, given that farmers traditionally use seed stock from the previous harvest when planting. Nineveh Province alone is usually sown with 835,000 hectares of barley, but it is unclear to what extent the fields will be planted.
South Africa: South African yellow corn for December delivery has dropped to $161/MT, according to Bloomberg News. This is yellow corn’s lowest price in three weeks. Further, the Crop Estimates Committee has maintained its estimate for the yellow corn harvest at 6.6 MMT.
Ukraine: Persistently hot weather in the late summer likely cut Ukraine’s corn harvest by 13 percent to total some 27 MMT, according to Reuters. Following last year’s record 30.9 MMT crop, farmers had planted corn at a record high 4.8 million hectares. However, poor weather may have cut yields to 5.2-5.6 MT per hectare, down from the 6.4 MT per hectare seen last year.