Getreide News, 04/14/2023

Grain prices remain in reverse gear through Easter week. On Maundy Thursday, wheat in the front month still had a closing price of 251.25 euros/t on the display board of the Paris stock exchange, it was still 247.25 euros/t at the closing bell yesterday. The CBoT also went south on a weekly basis. Corn lost as well. Yesterday, the June contract in Paris closed at EUR 239.75, EUR 5 lower than on Wednesday, and compared to Thursday last week, grain fell by EUR 8 per ton. Accordingly, the cash market prices in the local cash markets for feed wheat, barley or bread wheat are also weaker. The statements made by the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Ankara right at the beginning of the new trading week caused uncertainty. On a working visit to Turkey, he had expressed very sharp criticism of the conditions and again called for trade facilitation for Russian agricultural goods. A government spokesman renewed the criticism over the course of the week. As in previous talks, Russia is threatening to end the agreement. At the same time, Russia has recorded high export quantities of wheat and its export prices are repeatedly depressing global price developments.The WADE report published by the US Department of Agriculture on Tuesday did not cause any significant surprises for wheat in particular. Global consumption and production volumes were only adjusted slightly, and global ending stocks at the end of the fiscal year were corrected slightly downwards. For Europe, the USDA expects a lower export volume compared to previous forecasts. Until 09.04. In the current marketing year, the EU-27 have so far exported 23.82 million tons of wheat to third countries. In northern Germany, however, export traders are currently reporting low demand and are therefore only buying in modest quantities at the moment. On Thursday, the French Ministry of Agriculture reduced its forecast for French wheat exports outside the EU by 50,000 tons to 10.4 million tons. However, that would still be around 18.5 percent more than in the previous year. The Paris Ministry of Agriculture also reduced the area under wheat cultivation to 4.75 million hectares. So far, a cultivation area of 4.85 million hectares has been expected. On the CBoT, weak export demand in particular weighed on the mood of market participants yesterday. Even the weather forecast for the Great Plains could not lift the courses positively.Meteorologists continue to predict dry and warm weather in the southern growing areas. This is likely to have a further negative impact on the winter wheat crops, which are already plagued by drought. In the northern plains, on the other hand, there is heavy rainfall and the sowing of spring wheat is halted. While US wheat exports are subdued, corn demand volumes are benign. Yesterday, Thursday, the USDA reported retail sales of 191,000 tons of corn. The customer here is China. At 527,000 tons, however, weekly export bookings were lower than in the previous week. Ethanol production has also fallen to its lowest level since the beginning of the year. In the WASDE report on Tuesday, the USDA reduced production expectations for Argentina in particular. Global corn production is also expected to be lower than previously. For Argentina, the USDA now expects a quantity of 37 million tons. On the other hand, the grain exchange in Rosario lowered its forecast to 32 million tons yesterday, Thursday, thereby reducing its own forecast by 3 million tons. In Brazil, the USDA continues to expect a harvest of 125 million tons. The Brazilian agricultural authority Conab has revised its own forecast to 124.9 milliontons increased yesterday. The majority of the harvest there comes from the second maize sowing. The European Union has meanwhile imported 21.74 million tons of corn. Last year at the same time it was 12.62 million tons.