Miller Magazine Issue: 118 October 2019

66 COVER STORY MILLER / OCTOBER 2019 exports by almost 30% year to year (see below graph). In Kazakhstan not everything is said and done in terms of quantity and quality of grain harvest as the untimely and prolonged rains interrupted Kazakh harvesting cam- paign and negatively affected quality. In wheat and du- rum cut after the rains sprouted grain range from 2% to 80%! Sometimes damage to the grain is not seen with the naked eye. Wheat seems normal but has low falling number pointing at ongoing alpha-amylase activity. Fall- ing number in durum, which is cut in Northern Kazakh- stan after the rains, ranges from 35 to 100 sec whereas wheat and durum cut before the rains showed falling number well above 300 sec. Some unharvested areas under linseed risk to spend the winter in the fields. Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, notably in Ar- gentina, market starts to take note of dryness, which is threatening wheat yields and slowing corn sowing. Only a few months back analysts expected a record wheat crop of 20-21 million tons in Argentina, which is now slashed to 16-17 million tons. Also in the southern hemisphere, there is more talk of Australian wheat crop going backwards due to dryness, with some commercials saying the crop might be only 16 to 17 mln tons. On the other hand, US wheat has been negatively impacted by excessive moisture and Canada is having trouble bringing their crop in, while cooling is getting un- derway with the arrival of frost and freezes in the Cana- dian Prairies. By and large, grain price is a fairly good indicator of lo- cal growing conditions in a grain exporting country when offset against competing origins. Grain in the countries, where production is under threat, is protectively priced in order to limit potential exports. Hence, export demand pull is felt, first and foremost, at the origins, which are out of the woods in terms of quantity and quality, and competitively priced to sell.