MED-Amin network

Terre-net Média, 30/09/2019 - La sécheresse qui sévit en Argentine menace la production de blé. Le pays rejoint notamment le Canada et l’Australie, où les conditions climatiques posent également problème. L’offre en deuxième partie de campagne pourrait donc être plus limitée que prévu.

En Argentine, le climat beaucoup trop sec pourrait pénaliser la production de blé d’autant que le déficit hydrique, qui affecte maintenant 22,5 % des cultures selon la bourse de commerce de Buenos Aires, s’est accentué ces deux dernières semaines dans une bonne partie du pays. Les plantes sont à un stade critique de développement et le potentiel de rendement pourrait être entamé si les précipitations attendues dans les prochains jours, surtout dans le nord, restent insuffisantes.

Les conditions climatiques ne s’améliorent pas non plus en Australie (sécheresse persistante) et l'hiver fait ses premiers approches au Canada et aux USA.

L'Economiste Maghrébin, 28/09/2019 - La récolte finale des céréales en Tunisie a atteint au cours de la saison 2018/2019 un record près de 24 millions de quintaux contre 14 en 2017/2018.

Cela comprend selon le Ministère de l'agriculture, des ressources hydrauliques et de la pêche, 12,6 Mq de blé dur, 1,8 Mq de blé tendre, 9,1 Mq d'orge.

La productivité des céréales s'élève à ...

Business recorder, 19/09/2019 - The cut aims at ensuring regular supplies and guaranteeing the stability of the soft wheat price at 260 dirhams per quintal. Morocco announced a cereals harvest of 5.2 million tonnes, down 49% from a year earlier because of a lack of rainfall.

Morocco will cut its customs duty on soft wheat to 35% from 135% from Oct. 1, government spokesman Mustapha El Khalfi announced on Thursday after a cabinet meeting.

“This is also a social measure that is aimed at boosting national reserves and protecting the purchasing power of citizens,” said El Khalfi.

“Keeping customs duty at 135% will lead to higher prices,” he said. Reuters on Tuesday cited a government source as saying that Rabat had decided to cut soft wheat duty. Wheat supply is key to Morocco’s stability as bread and semolina make up staples for the population of 35 million.

Successfull Farming, 01/10/2019 - More and more bullish news continues to come out of the grain complex as we pursue harvest.

It’s October. So far, producers have dodged the frost bullet for now, an extremely positive development for northern growers but also a bearish development for the market.

Crops will likely mature or get close to it in many northern areas, at least most of the crop in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

However, questions remain about the size of the 2019 crop given the late planting and late development so far.

For example, an Illinois grower who planted his corn on...

Reuters, 30/09/2019 - Dryness in Argentina is hitting the outlooks for wheat and corn crops, local climate experts said, while low-cost soy is being supported by growers looking to hedge their bets with political uncertainty rising ahead of October's presidential vote.

While large regions of the grain exporter's Pampas farm belt are in good condition, around one-fifth of the growing area has been hit by arid weather over recent weeks, said Eduardo Sierra, meteorologist at the University of Buenos Aires.

Sierra, climate consultant to the highly referenced Buenos Aires Grains Exchange, has cut his 2019/20 wheat crop forecasts to 17 million tonnes from 20 million tonnes previously and his corn crop outlook for this season by a fifth to 40 million tonnes. His soy projection has edged down to 50 million tonnes.

"You have 80% of the grains belt in good condition and 20% in mediocre to bad condition," he said, adding these areas had about 30% of Argentina's wheat, 20% of its soy and 25% of its corn crop.

The dryness has hurt wheat yields and slowed corn sowing, as growers pile into safe-haven soybeans, Argentina's main cash crop.

Uncertainty is rife in the recession-hit economy with left-leaning Peronist Alberto Fernandez expected to win the Oct. 27 presidential election.

World Grain, 24/09/2019 -  Chinese importers purchased about 10 boatloads of U.S. soybeans on Sept. 23 following deputy-level trade talks in Washington, D.C., U.S., last week, Reuters reported. The soybean deals were among the largest by private Chinese importers since China raised import tariffs by 25% on U.S. soybeans in July 2018 in retaliation for U.S. duties on Chinese goods, according to Reuters. News of the purchase sent benchmark U.S. soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade about 1.5% higher on Monday, the market’s . . .

September 2019 Crop Monitor for AMIS countries.

As of the end of August, conditions remain mixed for maize and soybeans, while favourable for rice and wheat. Winter wheat harvest is wrapping up in the Northern Hemisphere while spring wheat conditions remain mixed in Canada and the Russian Federation. In the Northern Hemisphere, maize remains behind schedule in the US at the same time as a heatwave negatively affecting crops in Europe. Rice in Asia is under generally favourable conditions with the exception of dry conditions in Thailand and northern Viet Nam. Soybean conditions remain mixed in the US and Canada primarily due to the delayed start to the season.

Business Matters, 16/09/2019 - Europe is at war. Not conventional military conflict, but a battle against an unprecedented, rampant virus.

An epizootic some are calling ‘pig Ebola’, officially known as African swine fever (ASF), has already laid waste the Chinese pig industry, and soon it will have European pig farms in its clutches.

Or certainly, that is how things are looking, given the current readiness levels in Europe and the rapid escalation of Eastern European outbreaks of infection.

The main concern for Europe’s pork producers is that the virus has reached Belgium: specifically, the French border with Belgium. France is planning a segregation fence for this reason; Denmark has already started building its own, this one on the border with Germany. Each of these nations aims to block the migration of wild boar which also carry the virus and are often responsible for the transmission of infections across borders.

The disease is devasting to domesticated pig populations, killing 90 percent of animals infected. While the virus only affects pigs, the consequences of large-scale contraction in a country are being demonstrated in harrowing fashion in China. There have been recorded outbreaks of ASF in every province in the country, with the first cases having emerged in August last year. The government has admitted to culling 2 million animals so far, however, analyst have posited that this is a massive undercount.

Researchers are placing estimates of animals dead by the end of the year at 200 million, or roughly half of all Chinese pigs. The scale is shocking, particularly as China is home to more than half of the global pig population.

“It’s historic; there’s never been...

CIMMYT release, 23/09/2019 - Scientists identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance, which will speed up global breeding efforts.

Using the full wheat genome map published in 2018, combined with data from field testing of wheat breeding lines in multiple countries, an international team of scientists has identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance and created a freely-available collection of genetic information and markers for more than 40,000 wheat lines.

Reported today in Nature Genetics, the results will speed up global efforts to breed more productive and climate-resilient varieties of bread wheat, a critical crop for world food security that is under threat from rising temperatures, rapidly-evolving fungal pathogens, and more frequent droughts, according to Philomin Juliana, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new study.

African Manager, 23/09/2019  - Les importations des céréales de l’Algérie ont reculé de 12,54% durant les sept premiers mois de 2019 pour atteindre près de 1,62 milliard de dollar, a appris APS auprès de la direction générale des Douanes (DGD).

De janvier à juillet derniers, les importations des céréales ont atteint 1,617 milliard de dollar, contre 1,849 milliard durant la même période de l’année dernière, enregistrant ainsi une baisse de -12,54%, selon les données statistiques de la direction des études et de la prospective des Douanes (DEPD).

A noter que cette tendance baissière des importations des céréales est appelée à se poursuivre durant les prochains mois, encouragée par une importante production nationale enregistrée durant la saison 2018-2019. 

A ce propos, le ministère de l’Agriculture, du Développement rural et de la Pêche, Cherif Omari avait annoncé récemment une “nette amélioration” du rendement de la filière céréalière, qui permettra à “l’Algérie de se passer de l’importation notamment d’orge et de blé dur”.

The Financial Post, 23/09/2019 — Brazil plans to introduce a 750,000-tonne tariff-free quota for wheat imports from countries outside of the South American Mercosur trade bloc in November, a government official said on Monday.

Flavio Bettarello, the agriculture ministry’s assistant secretary for trade and foreign relations, told an industry conference that enforcing the new tariff-free quota could help Brazil add new suppliers, including the United States and Russia.

The government is still pondering how to implement the quota in November, he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference, explaining that it could be introduced via an order from the Special Secretariat for Foreign Trade and International Affairs (Secint) or from the Executive Secretariat of Foreign Trade (Camex).

The Brazilian millers’ association Abitrigo welcomed the new quota, which was announced as part of a series of measures to open up Brazil’s economy and increase the country’s share of global agricultural trade...

Bloomberg Opinion, 24/09/2019 -- This year’s U.S. corn crop isn’t looking great. Soggy spring weather in many parts of the Midwest delayed planting, and warmer-than-normal temperatures lately have been posing their own problems.(1)Still, while the 13.8-billion-bushel corn harvest currently projected by the US Department of Agriculture would be the smallest since 2015, it’s about 40% more than U.S. corn farmers were bringing in just two decades ago, and more than three times the average harvest in the 1960s.

Corn is the biggest U.S. crop by volume, acres harvested and value (the most valuable agricultural product is cattle and calves, which are usually fed a lot of corn in the latter stages of their lives). That’s not even counting corn for silage — an animal feed of fermented, chopped-up corn plants — and the sweet corn that we eat off the cob. Silage and sweet corn are measured differently, which is why they’re not included in the above chart, and they are also much less widely grown, with 6 million acres of silage and 473,100 acres of sweet corn harvested last year to just under 82 million acres of corn for grain.

That acreage is higher than it was a few decades ago, which accounts for some of the production boom. But this acreage increase followed even bigger declines in the mid-20th century — grain-corn acreage hit its all-time high of 110.9 million in 1917. The main reason the U.S. produces much more corn than it used to is because U.S. corn farmers have become much, much more productive.

Reuters, 29/09/2019 - The Australian government said on Sunday its financial assistance to drought-affected farmers did not contravene the country's free-trade agreements. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday an additional A$100 million ($68 million) would be made available for drought-striken farmers, with lower eligibility standards so more could access the previously committed A$7 billion in aid.

Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie said the support was not a farm subsidy that could jeopardise Australia's obligations under its free-trade agreements.

"As an exporter of 70% of what we produce, we don't want to be doing anything here at home that puts at risk our ability to trade," McKenzie told Sky News. 

Parts of Australia's east coast are suffering under the worst drought in living memory and the weather bureau has forecast another three months of dry weather.

Australia's east coast accounts for close to a third of its wheat output, and the grain is the country's largest and most lucrative rural crop for one of the world's top 10 exporters of wheat.

World Grain, 25/09/2019 — Millers in Lebanon are warning that the country’s flour production is being threatened by low wheat reserves stemming from currency issues, Reuters reported. In statement released on Sept. 24, the Lebanese millers’ association urged officials to find a solution for dollars to be supplied at the official price, “so owners of the mills can resume their work and import the country’s wheat need.” Dollars and pounds are legal tender in Lebanon, and the Lebanese pound has been pegged against the dollar at a level of 1,507.5 pounds for more than two decades. It said the wheat reserve at the mills “has fallen to a level that represents a danger, and this may expose the country to a supply crisis if the U.S. dollar problem is not resolved.”

Lebanon is very dependant on wheat imports to supply millers and produce flour in need. . . .

EU DG AGRI release, Cereal Market and balance situation. Here are the Highlights of the main changes compared to last year are:

•Production forecast : above average (311,2 million tonnes, + 7,2% y/y) based on:
+ Areas communicated by Member States
+ Yield Forecast (MARS)
oIncrease of total EU cereal area (56,1 million ha, 1,9% y/y)
•Decrease of the total imports, in particular for maize
•Increase of the total exports
•Increase of ending stocks

World Grain, 16/09/2019 - A sharp upward revision in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s forecast in the Aug. 12 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates for the U.S. 2019-20 maize crop sent prices lower in mid-August. In a weekly newsletter published Aug. 20, the European Confederation of Maize Production (CEPM) described the upward revision of the U.S. crop by 660,000 tonnes “surprising for all market observers.” The U.K.’s Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board said the new USDA production forecast for the United States at 353.1 million tonnes was up . . .

ObservAlgérie, 21/09/2019 - Les statistiques de deux sources différentes sur l’importation de blé dur par l’Algérie viennent démentir les chiffres annoncés par le gouvernement algérien. L’Algérie achèterait entre 420 000 et 600 000 tonnes de blé à moudre.

Ainsi, le département d’agriculture du gouvernement américain a estimé que l’Algérie importerait sept millions de tonnes de blé durant la campagne de commercialisation de 2019-2020. L’Algérie serait alors le quatrième plus grand importateur de blé dans le monde, avait rapporté jeudi le site spécialisé S&P Global Platts. Cette annonce remet en question les statistiques de l’Office algérien interprofessionnel des céréales (OAIC).

Par ailleurs, l’agence britannique Reuters a annoncé que l’Algérie achèterait entre 420 000 et 600 000 tonnes de blé par an, l’agence a rajouté que le prix de chaque tonne achetée s’élève entre 211 et 213 dollars, les frais de transport compris. La somme totale achetée varie ainsi entre 88,6 et 127 millions de dollars. Elle ajoute que le blé acheté par l’Office algérien interprofessionnel des céréales (OAIC) pourrait provenir de la France et de la région de la mer Baltique.

Afrique Agriculture, 24/09/2019 - La 14ème édition du Salon international de l’agriculture, du machinisme agricole et de la pêche (SIAMAP 2019) se tiendra du 24 au 29 septembre au Parc des expositions du Kram. L’annonce a été faite jeudi 14 février lors d’une cérémonie de lancement des préparatifs de cette manifestation.
Ce Salon, qui se présente comme l’une des plus importantes manifestations agricoles en Afrique et dans le monde arabe, sera aménagé sur une superficie de 20.000 m2 et accueillera plus de 250.000 visiteurs.
Selon l’UTAP, organisatrice du SIAMAP, cette manifestation verra la participation de plus de 600 exposants de Tunisie et de 30 pays étrangers.