Chicago Board of Trade Market News
Outlook: The market’s attention will increasingly turn to South American weather as Argentine corn heads into pollination in the next few weeks. Argentine pollination will be slightly delayed and on less acreage than farmers initially intended because of a dry spell at the beginning of the season. The most threatening time for weather to become hot and dry is going into pollination.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is presently in Beijing, and is seeking a resolution to the Chinese concerns about an unapproved biotech strain. The Chinese are lagging behind the majority of other nations that have already granted their approval for the product. As a result, Secretary Vilsack has wisely encouraged a more synchronized approval process for biotechnology. Developing a more simultaneous approval process that is based entirely upon a science-based technique is an idea that seems to make the most sense for any global commodity. There simply are no long-term advantages for anyone when actions are based upon any other criteria, because any other criteria can cause merchandisers to lose profits and buyers to lose creditability.
The outlook going into the first quarter of calendar year 2014 is that more attention will be paid to South American weather, increasing efforts will be made to resolve Chinese concerns about biotech traits, and USDA will publish additional data on January 10 in which a potential yield increase could be partly offset by an increase in domestic feed and residual. Last, later data from USDA is generally expected to show a decline in U.S. corn acreage this spring.