Headlines:
- A group of U.S. chicken farmers are suing the country’s biggest poultry processors for conspiring to depress their pay
- Russia is putting a temporary ban on imports of beef from New Zealand after finding the feed additive ractopamine in samples
- UN plans emergency meeting, as armyworm outbreak hits South Africa
The United Nations is to hold an emergency meeting into the spread of a dangerous insect pest in southern Africa, where it has already wreaking “considerable crop damage”, and which was confirmed on Friday as reaching South Africa. The UN agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, is on February 14-16 to meet in Harare over an emergency response to the armyworm outbreak, which has reached Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe besides potentially South Africa, the region’s key agricultural export country.
- Soy futures sag under South American supplies
Soybean futures tumbled, as Chinese buyers made a cautious return to the market after the long New Year’s holiday. There were no new daily export sales announced by the US Department of Agriculture. True, there was a spurt of overnight buying, which Darrell Holaday at Country Futures said was “probably the return of the Chinese speculator”. “They found there was plenty of product for sale at the higher price levels,” Mr Holaday said. The great question in soybean markets is for how long Chinese buyers will favour imports from North or South America. “Argentine offers for May… look to be the cheapest soybeans available,” said Tregg Cronin at Halo Commodities. “Brazilian soybeans would probably be offered cheaper, but the Brazilian farmer continues to dig his heels in on marketing given the sharply stronger dollar/real exchange rate from a year ago which is resulting in a lower cash price,” Mr Cronin said.
Summary:
The US Dollar showed some signs of recovery in overnight trading which may have contributed to some of the pressure in the grain and soy complex. The greenback was largely under pressure starting at 8:30 eastern for about 2.5 hours. Corn finished down 3 cents, Soybean led the decline losing 10.75 and Wheat shed 5 cents of its own. Reports show that BAGE Argentine Corn is 99.3% planted but that the South African Corn harvest is looking to be 76% of last year’s crop size because of drought. We closed the week out on a bit of a weaker note but only after the market had made some sizeable gains earlier in the week. Next week we are looking for the markets to once again hold their own. The Asian market players will return to the fold post Lunar and New Year celebrations. Part of the reason for the markets potentially doing well next week would be the possibility of big money bets and managed money that went long recently looking to defend their positions.
