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Russian wheat export prices were flat last week, supported by a 1.6 percent rise in the rouble against the dollar, Russian agriculture consultancy IKAR said.
Black Sea prices for Russian wheat with 12.5 percent protein content for April delivery were $188 a tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis at the end of last week, unchanged from a week earlier, according to IKAR.
SovEcon, another Moscow-based consultancy, quoted FOB maize (corn) prices down $2 to $175 per tonne, it said.
Russia is expected to reduce grain exports to 3.1 million tonnes in April due to lower supplies to Turkey, the second top buyer of Russian wheat after Egypt, which has effectively put purchases of wheat, maize (corn) and sunflower from Russia on hold by imposing high import tariffs.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, the government official responsible for agriculture, will meet his Turkish counterpart Mehmet Simsek in Moscow on Tuesday.
Russia exported 29.3 million tonnes of grain, including 22.6 million tonnes of wheat, between July 1 and April 13, the agriculture ministry said, down 0.5 percent year-on-year.
In the domestic market, high stockpiles, the stronger rouble and the approaching end of the season, which runs until June 30, continue to put pressure on grain prices, SovEcon said.
Domestic prices for third-class wheat fell 100 roubles compared with the week earlier to 9,600 roubles ($171) a tonne in the European part of Russia on an ex-works basis. Ex-works supply does not include delivery costs.

Wheat prices in Europe gained support from worries over dry weather threatening this summer's crop, as well as evidence of smaller-than-expected stocks, with London futures hitting their highest in nearly three years.

Front-month Paris wheat futures put in their weakest close in four months on Tuesday, but prices have rallied over 2% since then.

May Paris wheat futures were up 0.6% in afternoon deals, at E165.75 a tonne.

And in the UK, were wheat prices are getting long-term support from the weak sterling, front-month futures touched £149.50 a tonne, the highest on a spot contract basis since May 2014.

May London wheat futures later eased back to £149.25 a tonne, a gain of 0.5% on the day.

Le rapport 2017 de l'Observatoire de la formation des prix et des marges a été présenté aux médias le 11 avril 2017 par Philippe Chalmin, président de l'Observatoire de la formation des prix et des marges.
Ce rapport détaillé analyse l'évolution des prix aux stades de la production, des industries de transformation et de la distribution.

Les coûts de production agricole, les comptes des industries agroalimentaire et des rayons alimentaires sont passés au crible.

Au-delà de chiffres qui font référence, l’observatoire constitue un lieu de débats, de dialogue et d’écoute, de nature à contribuer à la construction de stratégies collectives et partagées, dans l’intérêt général des filières agricoles et agroalimentaires.

Pour en savoir plus, consulter le communiqué de presse ci-dessous ainsi que le rapport remis au Parlement.

Turkish wheat stocks are growing extremely tight, thanks to economic uncertainty and a ban on Russian imports, US officials warned, with supplies implied to fall to less than two weeks of demand by the end of next season.

Turkey is the world's largest flour exporter, and its milling industry is dependent on tariff-free imports of high protein wheat.

But the plummeting currency, and political uncertainty, is discouraging private-sector stockholding, while the government grain body aggressively draws down its stocks, the US Department of Agriculture's bureau in Ankara said.

Stocks to tighten

The bureau cut its ideas of 2016-17 imports by 800,000 tonnes, to 4.0m tonnes, citing "unstable currency, the Turkish grain board's strong sales, and a reduced tendency by the private sector to want to grow their stocks in an uncertain economic environment".

For the first time the European Commission has published a comprehensive E.U. protein balance sheet that overviews the total E.U. production, consumption and trade of all marketable sources of proteins used in animal feed production.

Next to well-known protein-rich materials such as soybean meal, rapeseed meal and pulses, the balance sheet includes sources with lower protein content like cereals. The balance sheet shows the total protein needs in the E.U., with E.U. production of cereals and oilseeds (i.e. derived rapeseed and sunflower meal through domestic crushing) providing the bulk of raw protein requirements. It also confirms the strong need to import protein-rich sources such as soybean meal and soybeans for E.U. crushing. It should be clear that the different vegetable protein sources have different nutritional profiles and cannot be substituted for each other.

Ukraine exported roughly 33.1 MMT of grains in the 2016/17 season by March 28, 2017, or 9% more than a year ago (30.3 MMT), reports UkrAgroConsult.

The exports included 14.5 MMT of wheat (12.8 MMT in MY 2015/16), 13.6 MMT of corn (13.3 MMT) and about 4.78 MMT of barley (4 MMT).

In addition, 271.6 KMT of flour was shipped abroad in the period under review – up 18% from the same time in 2015/16 (230.1 KMT).

Russian wheat export prices rose slightly last week due to farmers holding on to their goods in the expectation of further price growth, Russian agriculture consultancy IKAR said on Monday.

Their hopes are supported by Russia's Economy Ministry scenario forecast, which sees the weakening of the rouble currency by the end of 2017. This would make Russian grain and other commodities more competitive on global dollar-denominated markets.

Black Sea prices for Russian wheat with 12.5 percent protein content for April delivery were at $188 a tonne on a free-on-board (FOB) basis at the end of last week, up $1 from a week earlier, according to IKAR. The price for May delivery was quoted at $187 per tonne.

"Farmers continue to hold their wheat," Dmitry Rylko, the head of IKAR, told Reuters. These agriculture producers are not in a rush to sell because they have enough funds to finance the current spring sowing.

Farmers have already sown spring grains on 3.8 percent of the planned area, or on 1.2 million hectares. The pace of sowing is slightly ahead of the previous year, according to the agriculture ministry data.

SovEcon, another Moscow-based consultancy, quoted wheat at $191 a tonne in deep-water ports at the end of last week, down $1, and unchanged at $167 a tonne in shallow-water ports. FOB maize (corn) prices rose $2 to $177 per tonne, it said.

Russia exported 28.7 million tonnes of grain, including 22.2 million tonnes of wheat, between July 1 and April 5, the agriculture ministry said, down 0.1 percent year-on-year.

Chinese corn sowings are easing, the countries massive stockpiles are slowly being drawn down, as a result of the large-scale liberalisation of the farm sector, US official said.

And with corn margins falling, wheat is winning hectares, pushing plantings to 15-year highs, US Department of Agriculture's Beijing bureau.

But the US officials warned that China's agricultural sector remains dogged with uncertainty about the progress of the huge shake-up it is undergoing.

"Nearly all players in the Chinese grains market continue to operate with little certainty about how the central government intends to manage the transition towards a more liberalized farm sector," the bureau said.

A sudden shift

The United States has risen to the top as the No. 1 supplier of wheat and corn to Chile, according to a March 30 report from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In the report, the USDA noted that area planted to both wheat and corn decreased in Chile during the 2016-17 marketing year, reflecting anticipated droughts that led farmers to plant less.

With less planted area to the crops, the United States has staked claim to a larger share of Chile’s import market. In the case of wheat, U.S. wheat exports to Chile in the 2015-16 marketing year reached 373,000 tonnes, up 100% from 186,000 tonnes in the 2014-15 marketing year. As a result of the sharp gain, the United States has overtaken Canada as the main supplier of wheat to Chile, and now supplies 40% of the market, the USDA said.

“Competitive U.S. wheat prices and consistent quality (high gluten content) are the key reasons behind the surge in U.S. exports,” the USDA said.

Louis Dreyfus Co. (LDC) has continued to expand globally by focusing on each step in the production process, which has not only allowed the company to react to market volatility or uncertainties, but also invest in each process from production to logistics.

In its North American operations LDC completed its Mississippi River logistic network for grain and oilseeds. This included the completion of its 80,000-bushel truck-to-barge loading facility in West Memphis, Arkansas, U.S. The terminal is currently operational storing and shipping corn and soybeans along with other ag products grown in the region.

“We can now provide a complete, fast efficient service bringing grains and oilseeds from the heart of the U.S. to export facilities in the Mississippi Delta,” the company said in its annual report issued earlier this month. “This makes LDC an advantageous choice for growers and customers seeking to access global demand for these key crops.”

Global per capita consumption of wheat as food has held remarkably stable in the past dozen or so year, according to compilations provided by the International Grains Council.

For the entire world, per capita consumption of wheat as food in the crop year starting in 2017 was forecast at 66.9 kilograms, or 147.5 pounds. Multiplying by 72% equals 106 pounds in terms of wheat flour. That number has been the same for practically the past 12 years, a period during which per capita flour use in the United States fell from 136 in 2005 to 133 pounds in the most recent year.

The steadiness in per capita usage estimated by dividing estimated consumption of wheat for food by global population count sharply contrasts with the per capita declines that have occurred in the same period in developed nations, primarily the United States and western member nations of the European Union.

In the United States, total consumption of wheat flour in the year has held almost the same for some years in a row even though population has increased. A similar experience has been observed in Western Europe, where slow growth in population has seen a slight downtrend in flour production.

At the same time the trend of per capita consumption was steady to falling in developed nations, growth occurred at a rapid rate in emerging nations, especially in central Europe, Far East Asia, Africa and South America.

Egypt’s agriculture and land reclamation ministry announced the commencement of the wheat harvest season as of Saturday over a total arable area of 3.1 million feddans (roughly one acre), according to a statement emailed to Ahram Online by the ministry.
According to the ministry, the price of the strategic crop, to be delivered to the state’s General Authority of Supply Commodities, will be EGP 555 per ardeb (roughly 150 kg) for the lowest quality, while the higher quality will cost EGP 565 and EGP 575.

Agriculture minister Abdel-Moneim El-Banna said that his ministry, in coordination with the supply ministry, will work on facilitating the wheat supply to the government, setting a limit of 72 hours to pay the farmers their dues.
Supply minister Ali Moselhi said last month that Egypt is targeting between four to 4.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2017.

Le conseil spécialisé de FranceAgriMer pour la filière céréalière s’est réuni le 12 avril 2017 sous la présidence de Rémi Haquin. Retour sur les points forts abordés lors de cette réunion : nouvelles prévisions de FranceAgriMer pour la campagne commerciale française 2016/17, plan stratégique 2017-2021 pour le développement des exportations et l’internationalisation des filières, avancées du volet Recherche et Développement du plan protéines de la filière céréalière.
Campagne commerciale française 2016/17 : exportations d’orges revues à la hausse, avec le retour de l’Arabie saoudite sur le marché français

Sur le marché français, les prévisions d’utilisations de blé tendre par la meunerie, l’amidonnerie et les fabricants d’aliments du bétail restent pratiquement inchangées par rapport au mois dernier ainsi que les prévisions d'exportations vers l'Union européenne et les pays tiers. Le stock de fin de campagne s’allège toutefois à 2,6 Mt (- 0,4 Mt par rapport au mois dernier), en raison de la révision à la baisse des prévisions de collecte en régions. Les prévisions d’exportations d’orges vers les pays tiers sont révisées à la hausse à 2,4 Mt, soit 400 000 tonnes de plus que le mois dernier, en raison d’achats substantiels de l’Arabie saoudite sur le marché français le mois dernier. Le stock de fin de campagne s’allège à 1 Mt (- 600 000 tonnes).

Maybe we shouldn't be, as agricultural commodity consumers, despite the large surpluses of major grains evident in official crop balance sheet estimates, and in weak market prices.

Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nations food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, warns against complacency over crop supplies, arguing that a market rally is but a couple of weather upsets away.

"Last year, we had a problem in France," where June rains doused hopes of a strong cereals harvest, landing the country, the European Union's largest producer, with a drop of more than 30% in wheat output.

"Imagine if in the same year, Russia and the Black Sea had a similar issue," Mr Abbassian told Agrimoney.com.

"Wheat prices would probably be double where they are."

The pace of Russian corn exports slowed down to some degree in February 2017. 430.3 KMT was exported from the country that month, or 37.5% less than in February 2016.

Nevertheless, Russian corn exports in the first half of the current season are far ahead of the year-ago level, UkrAgroConsult notes. So, Russian exporters supplied 29% more corn to foreign markets in September-February 2016/17 than at the same time in 2015/16 (3270.5 KMT against 2537.8 KMT in September-February 2015/16).

In the current marketing year, the top place among importers of Russian corn is shared by the European Union and Iran. The second largest importer is South Korea.

The third top position in the ranking of Russian corn destinations was shared almost equally by Turkey and Vietnam – each of them purchased at least 350 KMT of the commodity. Vietnam will quite likely become one of the top three end markets for Russian corn. In addition, according to market participants, another 200 KMT of Russian corn was exported to the Vietnamese market in March.

The import and export of crops drawing on groundwater is threatening food and water security in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Growth in agricultural production has come at the cost of considerable groundwater depletion.

The international food trade accounts for approximately 11% of non-renewable groundwater use. The Middle East and North Africa are regions that rely heavily on overexploited aquifers to grow crops. Other countries are the US, Mexico, India, Pakistan and China.
A team of researchers led by Carole Dalin of University College London quantified the level of groundwater depletion linked to international exports and imports of 26 crop classes in the years 2000 and 2010.

“In particular for the Middle East and North Africa, the imports per capita are high,” says Dalin, of her research published in Nature1. “Up to nearly 150m3 per capita per year [of non-renewable groundwater] are involved in Qatar’s food imports. This comes in addition to the direct water consumption in Qatar, which has been found to be one of the highest in the world."

According to the researcher, that 150m3 is only non-renewable groundwater; to produce Qatar’s food imports, the country consumes water from other sources, such as renewable groundwater, surface water and rainfall.

Turkish flour mills have covered their short-term needs by purchasing several hundred thousand tonnes of wheat from EU and Black Sea countries, replacing Russian supplies blocked by a change to import rules, millers and traders said.

Turkey has effectively halted purchases from Russia of wheat, maize (corn) and sunflower seeds by removing Russian items from a duty-free import scheme from March 15.

The Turkish move meant Russian supplies facing a prohibitive 130 percent duty, though Ankara has denied banning imports from Russia. Moscow has said the tariffs are hindering relations.

Ankara has not said why it removed Russia from the duty-free scheme, but the Turkish economy ministry has said an improvement in political ties with Russia was “not fully reflected yet in economic relations”, as Russia is yet to restore visa-free travel with Turkey after a previous row.

Relations between the two countries have been strained in recent years and Russia imposed trade restrictions on Turkish goods after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015, but Moscow lifted most restrictions as the two countries restored ties in August last year.

Turkey is the second-largest export market for Russian wheat and the disruption to trade has upset millers who use Russian wheat in their flour which is then exported in large volumes.

The negotiations with Turkey on grain supplies may be held in Russia and most likely after April 16, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said on Tuesday.

TAMBOV, April 4. /TASS/. The negotiations with Turkey on grain supplies may be held in Russia and most likely after April 16, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said on Tuesday.

"The date has not been set yet, but they have (in Turkey) a referendum on the 16th (of April). So far it is difficult to agree on it, so the negotiations will probably be after that," he explained.

At the same time, Dvorkovich noted that the negotiations "will not necessarily be held in Moscow."

"We suggest holding talks in Russia, it could be Sochi or another place," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

La nouvelle loi sur l’investissement semble incitative pour le secteur agricole, souvent perçu comme le parent pauvre des politiques publiques. « Elle pourrait, à travers des dispositions encourageantes, redonner envie aux jeunes diplômés tunisiens de se lancer dans des activités agricoles et de promouvoir leurs propres projets », a laissé entendre, mardi, Samir Taieb, ministre de l’Agriculture, des Ressources Hydrauliques et de la Pêche, lors d’une conférence de presse, tenue à Tunis.

Concrètement, la nouvelle loi de l’investissement habilite les jeunes à obtenir un crédit, dont le plafond a été augmenté de 150 mille dinars à 250 mille dinars pour l’acquisition d’une terre agricole. L’Etat se charge des dépenses d’aménagement, dont le forage et l’électrification des puits, perçus comme les principaux handicaps qui dissuadent les jeunes à lancer leurs projets agricoles.
Ces crédits, remboursables sur 25 ans avec un délai de grâce aussi augmenté de 5 à 7 ans, sont octroyés à des taux d’intérêt qui ont été baissé de 5% à 3%. Leur autofinancement représente 5% de la valeur de la terre et 10% de celle des travaux d’aménagement.
Les jeunes promoteurs agricoles pourraient aussi bénéficier d’un accompagnement et d’un encadrement pour réussir leurs projets et garantir leur pérennité. Par ailleurs, le ministère de l’agriculture prévoit des déplacements dans les régions pour vulgariser ces nouvelles mesures auprès des agriculteurs.