Headlines:

  • Brazil dryness gives some support to coffee, soy
    Just how helpful have rains in Brazil been? As MDA noted, “rainfall finally returned to most of the major growing areas in Brazil beginning late last week and lasting through yesterday”, providing moisture to promote the likes of soybean sowings and the fixing of coffee tree blossoms. “The wet weather across most of the major growing areas led to notable improvements in soil moisture,” the weather service said. ‘Soil moisture to decline again’ However, rainfall “did fall short of expectations” in some areas, including southern areas of Mato Grosso, the top soybean-growing state, and far Southwestern Minas Gerais, the country’s biggest producer of arabica coffee. Furthermore, “dry weather is expected across Brazil today and the dry weather pattern is expected to continue across the northern and central growing areas in Brazil over at least the next 10 days,” MDA’s Kyle Tapley said. “This will allow soil moisture to decline again, particularly across southern and eastern Mato Grosso, Goias, Minas Gerais, and northern Sao Paulo”, Sao Paulo being the biggest growing state for sugar cane.
  • Senate Confirms Censky and McKinney as Senior USDA Executives
    One day after a committee cleared their nominations, the Senate confirmed by voice vote Steve Censky as deputy agriculture secretary and Ted McKinney as undersecretary for trade, the first Trump appointees to reach USDA since April. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue welcomed the new members of his executive team and urged the Senate to act on other USDA nominees. The Agriculture Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday on Bill Northey, nominated for undersecretary for farm production and conservation, and Gregory Ibach, nominated for undersecretary for regulation and marketing. Senate Democrats have threatened an all-out fight on the remaining Trump nominee for agriculture undersecretary, Sam Clovis, who also would serve as chief scientist without a pedigree in ag research or education.

Summary:

After trading down to 346 December Corn closed at 348.25 to end the day down 1.25 cents. December Wheat was the biggest loser on the day giving up 6.00 cents at settlement. Meanwhile, Soybean recovered from early trading losses and managed to close 3.00 cent positive on the day. Rain in parts of the eastern Corn Belt has caused some delays in the harvest with precipitation expected to carry on through the rest of the week. Trade estimates for tomorrow’s USDA export sales are coming in at 500k to 700k metric tons for 2017-18 Corn. Last week, export sales came in at 320,242 metric tons. Weekly export sales for Soybeans are expected to come in at 1M to 1.3M metric tons versus last week’s 2.982M metric tons total.  Export sales for Wheat are estimated at 300k to 500k metric tons versus last week’s 435,599 metric tons export sales number.