MED-Amin network

China's wheat imports will rise further than had been expected this year, thanks to poor quality – a problem too for old-crop corn stocks, which thanks to fungal toxins "may not be suitable for processing or feed".

US Department of Agriculture staff in Beijing pegged China's wheat imports in 2016-17 at 4.0m tonnes – 500,000 tonnes above the USDA's official estimate and a figure well above the country's average buy-ins.

Indeed, it would be the third highest imports of the last 20 years, behind the total of a little above 6.7m tonnes purchased in both 2004-05 and 2013-14.

The forecast reflected the damage to wheat from harvest-time rains which "downgraded crop quality and yields across East China's wheat-growing provinces including, Jiangsu, Hubei and Anhui".

Purchasing interventions in the current season once again held at the National commodity exchange (NTB)

The state on Wednesday, December 14, bought from farmers 22 275 tons of grain (out of a proposed 23 625 tons), totaling 218 713 500 rubles this was reported NTBs.

Main purchased volume was wheat class 4 – 20 925 tonnes to the amount of 207 555 750 rubles. To the list offered at auction grain back wheat 5 class – it was purchased in the amount of 1 350 tonnes, the amount of purchases made 11 157 750 rubles. The 3rd class wheat and barley in the auction did not appear.

The average prices of purchase of grain as of 14 December was as follows:

    wheat of 4 class – 9 919,0 roubles/t;
    wheat 5 class – 8 265,0 RUB/t

The mechanism of procurement (procurement by the state grain) and commodity (selling grain from the state intervention Fund) intervention operates in Russia since 2001. It is aimed at the stabilization of prices on the grain market and support agricultural producers. When prices fall, the government removes excess grain from the market in order to stop its depreciation, with a sharp rise in prices – is selling grain from the state Fund and thereby stops its rise in price.

This year's dismal harvest has not put French farmers off grains, with winter wheat sowings edging to their highest in more than 26 years – although dry weather has provoked a drop in rapeseed area to a four-year low.

France's farm ministry - in its first forecast for winter grain sowings for the European Union's top producing country - pegged them 7.34m hectares.

While down 57,000 hectares year on year, plantings at that level remain comfortably above the five-year average area of 7.04m hectares, with growers keeping faith with grains despite the persistent rains which sent this year's yields of summer-harvested crops tumbling.

Lobby group Coceral on Monday underlined the setback to France's grains production, estimating it this year at 53.73m tonnes, a 25% drop year on year, with the soft wheat harvest pegged at 28.13m tonnes, a decline of 31%.

La menace représentée par la persistance de la dépendance de l’Algérie en matière de dépendance agricole vis-à-vis des marchés étrangers, à partir desquels elle continue d’importer des  « énormes quantités de céréales », en particulier, n’est pas sans inquiéter le professeur Fouad Chahat, professeur à l’institut national de recherche agronomique (INRA).

A ces importations constituées notamment de blé tendre, celui-ci ajoute celles de l’orge, du maïs, des tourteaux de soja et du lait.

Accueilli, dimanche, à l’émission L’invité de la rédaction de la chaine 3 de la Radio Algérienne, il constate que la recherche agricole dans le pays, reste insuffisamment dotée par rapport à des pays voisins.

Même si pour les productions maraichères, l’intervenant considère qu’il existe une « autonomie totale », il y relève, toutefois, un point faible constitué par les semences vis-à-vis desquelles, note-t-il, « nous se sommes pas encore autonomes », sauf pour ce qui concerne celle de la pomme de terre.

Il relève que « toutes les semences maraichères » sont produites à l’étranger, entrainant « une situation de faiblesse » au pays, les actions entreprises s’étant révélées insuffisantes « où n’ayant pas été menées jusqu’au bout ».

La question, constate le professeur Chatat, est de savoir si l’on va développer une production de semences à partir des variétés locales, « qui ont pratiquement disparues », où bien le faire a partir de semences importées, au risque de se heurter aux sociétés étrangères qui en détiennent les brevets d’exploitation exclusive.

Don't look for any significant price recovery in 2017, with supply remaining ample through next season, Commerzbank said.

But corn prices are seen a bit more resilient, as funds turn more bullish, while rapeseed is supported by tight supplies.

"The supply situation for many key agriculturals looks set to remain comfortable in 2017, meaning limited potential for prices to recover," Commerzbank said.

Heavy wheat production

Commerzbank said wheat markets were already subdued thanks to heavy production in the 2016-17 season.

"There is no sign as yet of any major problems when we look ahead to the next season either," the bank said.

"Conditions have been good so far, which points to another record crop next year."

And wheat demand prospects remain strong, despite uncertainty in Egypt, the top importer.

Export prices for milling wheat with 11.5% protein continued growing, reports UkrAgroConsult. In Russia, they closed last week another $2 at $179-181/MT FOB Novorossiysk port for December delivery. Thus, prices for Russian milling wheat with 11.5% protein have hit their 2016 high thanks to expanding exports of this grade in the current season.

Growth of purchase prices for high-protein wheat went on in the domestic market. On average, purchase prices for 12.5%-protein milling wheat closed the week up another RUB 100/MT at RUB 11300-11600/MT СРТ Black Sea due to stronger demand from traders.

Feed wheat prices continued rising on the same factors: shrinking supply against the background of comparatively stable demand. Russian feed wheat price closed the week up another $1-2 at $167-170/MT FOB Novorossiysk port for December-January delivery.

More information on price behavior on grain market in the countries of Black Sea region is available to subscribers for weekly market report "Black Sea Grain and Oil" and "Online market review" by UkrAgroConsult.

Russia may have a harder time exporting its wheat this season as bumper crops expected in Australia and Argentina increase competition for buyers.

Shipments from Russia, the world's biggest exporter, have so far lagged expectations after a record harvest, reports Bloomberg.

That means the country has more left to sell as the southern hemisphere producers add to global supplies.

Wheat crops in both Australia and Argentina will rise to the highest levels in five years, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

They are the fifth-and eighth-largest exporters, respectively, according to the International Grains Council.

"If they offer discounted prices to compete on our main markets such as Egypt and Bangladesh, things may get more difficult," Oleg Kryukovskiy, a trader of Russian wheat at GTCS Trading DMCC in Dubai, said by phone.

"It's a factor we'll need to take into account."

According to information of the State Statistics Service, Ukraine’s reserves of grains and pulses totaled 27.11 MMT as of November 1, 2016 that is 12% less than at the same time last year (31.71 MMT), reports UkrAgroConsult.

Simultaneously, wheat stocks decreased 16% to 12.13 MMT against 14.44 MMT reported as of November 1, 2015. Corn stocks also shrank, by 18% to 10.54 MMT, as harvesting in the country lags 11% behind last year. 

Barley inventories are still 5% up from last year, amounting to 2.76 MMT.

a production de maïs français de 11,8 millions de tonnes est fortement concurrencée par les autres céréales fourragères et surtout par les quantités inégalées de maïs disponibles sur le marché mondial.

Il y a un score dont les producteurs français de maïs se seraient bien passés. La campagne de 2016 s’inscrit dans la lignée de 2015 mais en pire ! La récolte française de maïs est, cette année, à la fois faible en quantité (11,8 million de tonnes) et difficile à écouler. Les débouchés sont en effet réduits. Le maïs français est en compétition avec les quantités significatives de blé fourrager disponibles en France et sur le marché européen. Et comme aucune taxe à l’importation n’est appliquée sur le marché européen, compte tenu du niveau des cours actuels, les maïs ukrainiens concurrencent aisément les grains français. Or les productions américaine et ukrainienne sont particulièrement abondantes et au printemps prochain, des récoltes argentine et brésilienne importantes, sont attendues.

« Toutefois, une petite opportunité à l’export est cependant à saisir en cette fin d’année en raison des problèmes logistiques rencontrés aux Etats Unis et en Ukraine, analyse Alexandre Boy d’Agritel. Mais au début de l’année prochaine, la concurrence des maïs importés pèsera plus lourdement sur le marché européen et concurrencera l’offre française. »

En effet, toujours selon Alexandre Boy d’Agritel, le gouvernement ukrainien a réduit les capacités d’acheminement des céréales par camions. Obsolètes, les infrastructures routières ukrainiennes se détériorent très vite sous le poids excessif des camions surchargés.

Des stocks de report à relativiser
Aux Etats-Unis, la priorité est la livraison de soja. La forte demande de la Chine et accessoirement des autres pays importateurs, obligent les ports à charger en priorité les cargos en graines de soja et à restreindre l’affrètement en maïs faute de quais disponibles ; ce qui réduit l’offre disponible et peut créer quelques tensions sur les cours.

Cette année, la production mondiale de maïs a augmenté de 65 millions de tonnes par rapport à 2015 pour atteindre 1,035 milliard de tonnes tandis que celle de l’Union européenne plafonne à 58,5 millions de tonnes (Mt). Outre la France, la production a significativement baissé en Bulgarie, en Roumanie mais elle a augmenté en Pologne et elle s’est maintenue dans les autres pays d’Europe centrale.

Bangladesh’s food ministry will join the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) and an American university to launch a comprehensive food security research project to address food security in the country.
The Bangladesh Integrated Food Policy Research Programme will combine policy research with capacity strengthening to find solutions to boost the long-term availability of food in a country that is prone to natural disasters that can wipe out stores of cereals, said food minister Qamrul Islam. 

“The government is committed to protecting the poor and vulnerable with the use of modern engineering and information technology,” he added.      

The five-year research programme, also involving academics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is designed to meet the food-policy needs of a growing Bangladesh population.  

Specifically, it will set out to improve the food value chain, find ways to increase public food-stocks, boost disaster responses and enhance price stabilisation by using digital technology. 

Its research activities will focus on a range of food policy considerations, including storage and transport, market and policy analysis, and capacity-building and outreach.  

As the programme’s lead partner, Ifpri will provide overall guidance on analytical work and assess best policies and practices on grain storage management. 

“In the last half of the twentieth century, food policy in most Asian countries focused on ensuring the availability of cereals,” said Shahidur Rashid, an Ifpri researcher and the programme’s lead. 

“But sufficient cereal availability and rapid economic growth in many of these countries, including Bangladesh, has highlighted the need to upgrade the food policy architecture with modern technology and stronger institutions; so, it is crucial we use a sound analytical basis to build and manage the new policy architecture.”  

The programme will also work with government institutions, including the food ministry’s policy monitoring unit, and the private sector.

By 2030, Russia should completely meet all domestic requirements in starches and other products of grain deep processing, as well as cover at least 5% of the global market of the products, declared the Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Alexander Tkachev on December 13.
At the same time, there is significant potential not only for import substitution policy, but also for the exports of Russian products of grain deep processing. Thus, the global market of amino acids totals nearly 35 bln USD per year. At the same time, Russia is almost absent on the market. Taking of nearly 10% of the market of amino acids will provide 3.5 bln USD of export revenues evry year, the Minister added.
A.Tkachev called the high level of costs for purchasing of foreign technology and construction of such enterprises, as the main reason for the absence of such industry in Russia.
Russia has to create a comprehensive program to stimulate and use domestic projects in the sphere of grain deep processing. It is advisable to include the direction of deep processing of agricultural products to the National Technology Initiative, to achieve the maximum efficiency, and work out a "roadmap" in the Foodnet direction, A.Tkachev stressed.

Dans le cadre de la coopération méditerranéenne, coordonnée par le CIHEAM, Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes et plus particulièrement son institut agronomique de Montpellier, FranceAgriMer a accompagné un étudiant marocain dans la présentation de son mémoire diplômant de fin d’études dont le sujet était l’organisation logistique portuaire céréalière en Tunisie.
La France concourt significativement à la sécurité alimentaire des populations de ce pays par le biais de ses exportations de céréales. Assurer l’alimentation et la sécurité alimentaire de ce pays nécessite pour la France de pouvoir répondre aux cahiers des charges toujours plus exigeants tant sur le plan quantitatif que qualitatif mais aussi, pour ce pays destinataire d’avoir des infrastructures portuaires, routières et ferroviaires adéquates. Disposer d’une chaîne logistique fluide, massifiée et sécurisée de l’entrée des marchandises importées à la consommation quotidienne de la population est aussi un enjeu majeur pour ce pays.

Russia's agriculture safety watchdog said on Thursday 18,000 tonnes of Russian wheat, seized by Egypt at an Alexandria port in November, had passed quarantine checks successfully.
Egyptian prosecutors seized the wheat from a storage site belonging to a private company in Dekheila port after finding it unsuitable for human consumption.

The Russian watchdog, known as Rosselkhoznadzor, sent a request to Egypt after media reports of the seizure, it said in a statement on Thursday.

"According to Egypt's Central Administration of Phyto Quarantine, the 18,000 tonnes of Russian wheat, mentioned in the reports, arrived at Alexandria on July 15 and was checked by representatives of Egypt's competent authorities the other day," the Russian watchdog said.

The cargo received the approval that its quality met the phytosanitary requirements and its release was approved, the watchdog added. "Thus, reports about the detention of a Russian wheat cargo are unfounded."

Cairo-based traders told Reuters in November the shipment was seized after a large quantity of insects was found in the storage site.

Egypt's agriculture ministry declined to comment on Thursday as an investigation by prosecutors was still ongoing.

"Increased competition" is to prevent Australia's wheat exports matching the ongoing harvest in setting a record, officials said, although proving more downbeat on domestic price prospects for barley and canola.

Abares, the official Australian commodities bureau, hiked by 4.1m tonnes to 22.4m tonnes its forecast for the country's wheat exports in 2016-17, on a July-to-June basis, citing the boost to supplies from a record harvest.

The bureau last week lifted by nearly 4.6m tonnes, to an all-time high 32.6m tonnes, its forecast for Australia's wheat production this season, thanks to "favourable seasonal conditions" which have "supported above-average to exceptional yields in much of the Australian cropping region".

However, the export forecast, while representing a jump of 42% year on year, remains below the record of 24.66m tonnes set in 2011-12.

It is also below a forecast of 23.0m tonnes revealed by the US Department of Agriculture on Friday, in its flagship monthly Wasde briefing on world crop supply and demand.

e programme d’atténuation des effets du déficit pluviométrique pour la campagne agricole 2015-2016 a été clôturé sur fond d’amélioration des conditions climatiques avec notamment l’excédent pluviométrique enregistré dans toutes les régions du Royaume par rapport à une année normale, annonce lundi le ministère de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche maritime. La campagne agricole 2015-2016 a été marquée par un déficit prononcé des précipitations impactant particulièrement les cultures en zones bour, indique le ministère rappelant qu’afin d’accompagner le monde rural et limiter les effets de déficit de précipitations sur l’activité agricole, le gouvernement, en exécution des Hautes Instructions Royales, a lancé un programme doté d’importants moyens pour répondre aux besoins des agriculteurs et assurer un bon déroulement de la campagne agricole.

Les mesures prises ont concerné la protection des ressources animales, la protection des ressources végétales et le suivi de l’exécution des projets de l’agriculture solidaire, précise le ministère dans un communiqué.

En matière de préservation des ressources animales, la première composante a ciblé le cheptel extensif des petits ruminants et des camelins. L’opération a ainsi consisté en la mise à la disposition de l’orge subventionnée dans différentes régions du Royaume, notamment dans celles où prévalent les petits ruminants et les camelins.

L’orge a été mise à la disposition des bénéficiaires dans des centres relais répartis sur l’ensemble du territoire du Royaume dans chaque village dans le souci de se rapprocher au maximum des bénéficiaires.

Dans ces centres, l’orge a été commercialisée à Guichet Ouvert au prix subventionné fixe de 2,00 dh/Kg. Le programme lancé en février 2016 a couvert 562 points de vente et porté à fin novembre 2016 sur la distribution effective de 7,2 Millions de quintaux au profit d’environ 710.000 bénéficiaires.

A noter que pour certaines communes excentrées, l’Etat a également pris en charge le transport des centres Relais vers les chefs-lieux des communes (cette opération a porté sur 1,6 million quintaux).

Tunisia's state grains agency has issued international tenders to purchase up to 109,000 tonnes of soft milling wheat and 50,000 tonnes of feed barley, European traders said on Thursday.  
 
The origin was optional and tender deadline is Friday, Dec. 2, they said.  The wheat was sought for a range of shipment dates in 2017 from Jan. 5 to Feb. 25, depending on origin, they said.  
 
The barley was sought for a range of 2017 shipment dates from Jan. 5 to Feb. 15, also depending on origin, they said.  
 
Global benchmark Chicago wheat futures hit contract lows this week on expectations of large global supplies after large harvests.  
 
In its last reported tender on Nov. 14, the Tunisian agency purchased some 100,000 tonnes of soft milling wheat and around 75,000 tonnes of feed barley.  
 

Argentina's growing agricultural productivity will demand large-scale investment in inland transport capacity, Roberto Viton from at agricultural advisory firm Valoral, told the AgriRisk Forum.

The election of Argentina's new president Maurico Macri at the end of last year will be a boon to farmers, boosting agricultural exports over the long term, Mr Vitton said.

Mr Macri's administration has removed with export quotas and tariffs for a range of commodities, from corn, to beef, to soymeal, while soybean tariffs are expected to be reduced over coming years.

And the devaluation of the currency has improved farmer incomes, encouraging production and exports

An east-west divide in Australia's "monster" wheat harvest is showing signs of being reflected in quality too, with growing talk of relatively low protein levels in Western Australian results.

Output estimates for Australia's overall wheat crop remain strong, with "private estimates… showing production at 31m-33m tonnes", according to US broker CHS Hedging, rising above 30m tonnes for the first time.

Ben Skerman, origination officer at the Australian operations of grain trader Nidera, said that "we are undoubtedly facing a monster Aussie wheat crop with total national production pegged at approximately 32m tonnes".

Strong results have been reported for barley, for which a record harvest is expected too, with industry group Barley Australia expecting the current crop to exceed significantly the high of 10.4m tonnes set 13 years ago.

East-west divide

However, the data show a divide between the bumper yields being recorded in eastern areas, and results which in Western Australia, the top grain-growing state, are being reported as falling short of such historical highs.

Last month, CBH Group downgraded its estimate for the overall Western Australian grains harvest, after late frosts, to 13m-14m tonnes, and stuck by that forecast in its latest harvest report, last week.

However, in the east, in New South Wales, merchant AdgVantage Commodities said that "yields have been anywhere from 3m tonnes per hectare to 5m tonnes per hectare for wheat and barley, which will go partly towards compensating on [low] prices".

And in South Australia, ag officials have estimated the state's wheat harvest at 6.3m tonnes, ahead of the record 6.06m tonnes set in 2010-11, while seeing the barley harvest, at 2.53m tonnes, topping the all-time high of 2.22m tonnes set three years ago.

While officials at Australia's Abares commodities bureau in September pegged the national wheat crop at 28.1m tonnes, and the barley harvest at 9.50m tonnes, both short of record highs, they typically update their estimates in early December.