According to Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) analysts, world grain markets are under pressure.
Factors coming in to play here include favourable weather for US maize-planting and resumed Ukrainian grain exports.
US weather looks favourable for planting its large forecast maize crop. Rain is due across the key maize producing regions in the mid-west over the coming fortnight. By the mid-way point of April, 8% of maize planting in the US was complete.
This is ahead of this time last year, which – at the same point – was 4% complete and ahead of the five-year average at 5% complete.
World grain markets
Adding further pressuring on global wheat prices over recent days was the resumption of Ukrainian exports.
Last week, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, all announced some form of ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
In response, the European Commission also introduced emergency preventative measures.
Wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunseed entering Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia would only be allowed should this produce be set for export to other EU members or to the rest of the world. The measure is in place until June.
Looking ahead, the fundamentals of the grain market point to ample supply of product becoming available.
Russian wheat production has been projected to come in at 84Mt for harvest 2023.
This is down on the level of performance achieved in 2022. However, in relative terms, it is still a large figure.
Meanwhile, Argentina’s wheat area for 2023/2024 is expected to increase by almost 10% to 6.7Mha.
Pressure is also coming on soya bean prices. Chicago soya bean futures up to the end of May were supported at the start of last week.
This reflected the fact the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) in the US had the largest soya bean crush in 15 months during March.
However, as the week progressed, bearish news outweighed this gain and the contract closed at $545.04/t on Friday, down 1% across the week.
Pressure came from a weaker US dollar and weaker crude oil prices, lacklustre Chinese demand, and improved weather outlook for US soya bean plantings.
In addition, Brazilian soya bean port premiums have fallen to historical lows. This is due to slow Chinese demand and a record soya bean crop.
It has been reported that two vessels carrying a combined 79,200t of soya beans is heading for the US which is pressuring the Chicago market.
The focus now is on US soya bean plantings levels. There has been widespread rain over recent days in the key production states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
This may slow planting operations down in the short term. However, up to now, planting progression is currently way ahead of 2022, according to the AHDB.