Protein Markets
- US soybeans pod counts in a 3 square foot plot are estimated to be 1146 pods vs 1136 average in Iowa and 1085 vs 1025 average in Minnesota
- US soybeans are now 92% podded vs 75% last week with conditions down 3% to 69% good to excellent
- The US has a record 20.5MMT of soybeans forward sold for new crop with China accounting for1 2MMT still below expectations to fulfil the Trade War Phase 1 deal
- Chinese feed demand in July has grown the fastest rate in nearly 10 years with expanding pig and poultry production
- Indigenous tribes in Brazil have blocked a major grain and soybean transport highway in response to the countries COVID-19 action causing a 30km backlog of trucks
- Argentina’s soybean crush was 3.5MMT vs 3.66MMT in June with two major crush facilities offline due to COVID-19 outbreaks causing significant delays
- India has estimated its new crop soybean production at 12.3MMT up 32% from last year as the country continues its path on self-sufficiency for oilseed crops
- US ethanol/DDGS production has stabilised in the last few weeks at 920,000 barrels per day down 10% from this time a year ago
PKE Markets
- The Indonesian Government has increased palm oil levy by $5 to $60/T after pledging $2.78 trillion Rupiah ($288M NZD) for financial assistance to reach 40% biodiesel mandate by next year
- Malaysian Primary Industries and Commodities Ministry is urging unemployed young Malaysians now at 9.7% to consider working in the palm industry
- Southern Peninsular Malaysia has estimated 1-20 August production of palm oil down 0.28% after a 1-15 August estimate of 1.13% up
Grains Markets
- US corn conditions are 64% good to excellent down 5% from last week with Iowa missing out on much of the rain that was forecast to fall last week
- Iowa corn yields are estimated at 177.8bpa vs 183.6 average and Minnesota 195.1bpa vs 180.2 average with talk the US corn crop has gone from ‘record breaking’ to ‘a really good crop’
- Long range forecast has rainfall below normal for Central Brazil until the end of October with corn crops already showing signs of stress
- China has found an outbreak of the army worm in the Northern province of Liaoning with a previous outbreak in 2019 causing damage to 1.13 million hectares of crops
- French maize has continued to be downgraded to 62% good to excellent vs 65% last week with extended dryness taking a toll
- Russia is expected to raise port fees as they try to cash in on a wheat crop set to test records of 86MMT
- Argentina’s wheat crop is looking stressed with the Rosario Grain Exchange saying if no major rain events occur central growing areas could downgrade yields by 30%
- Rainfall across the first half of August in Australia cropping regions are now pushing estimates for wheat over 30MMT, the second largest on record
- 2021 domestic maize contracting has begun at a premium to last year’s prices with strong forward dairy demand
Currency
- The New Zealand Dollar opened mostly unchanged this week at 65.4 US cents after comments from the RBNZ opening the door for negative interest rates this year
- The US weekly Jobless claims rose this week to 1.106 million unexpectedly after 0.971 the week prior and the first time new claims were under 1 million since March
- New Zealand’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.0% in the June quarter down from 4.2% in the March quarter while employment dropped to 66.9% from 67.5%
- Labour under-utilisation rate rose to 12% from 10.4% showing many employees remained in work at lesser hours largely thanks to the wage subsidy
- Total number of hours worked in June 2020 in New Zealand has also fallen 10%, the largest quarterly fall since records began more than 30 years ago
Dairy Markets
- A2 Dairies has offered a $270M deal to buy a 75.1% share of Mataura Valley Milk including a new processing facility in Southland
- A2 also announced if the deal went ahead it would invest $100M to enable the plant in Southland to can infant formula
- Miraka milk factory in Mokai has just produced its billionth UHT tetrapak ‘boxed’ milk after six years of production
