Miller Magazine Issue: 155 November 2022

104 MILLER / NOVEMBER 2022 MARKET ANALYSIS flow during last days going mainly to Algeria, Morocco + 2 last Oct GASC vessels. Argentina’s wheat crop has been seen sliding again due to prolonged drought plus a recent cold snap. The current 2022/2023 wheat crop, indeed, the past week was esti- mated at 15.2 million tonnes, down from the prior week’s forecast of 16.5 million tonnes, the Buenos Aires Grains Ex- change said in its weekly report last Thursday. Freezes from Oct. 8-9 in key areas planted with wheat caused significant damage to expected yields, according to the exchange, which also reported that 53% of wheat-planted areas are experiencing between regular and bad conditions. That is a slashing in its production forecast by nearly 8%. Locals expect crop at 14MMT. Australia, according to the USDA attaché, is on the path to a third consecutive bumper grain crop in marketing year (MY) 2022/23 after a record-setting winter crop and strong summer crop production in MY 2021/22. Particularly, wheat production is forecast at 34 million metric tons (MMT), down from the record-breaking MY 2021/22 crop of 36.3 MMT but still the second-largest in history. Similarly, barley production is forecast at 12.2 MMT, down from the previous year’s 13.9 MMT record. Crop quality and crop losses due to flooding re- main uncertain. Successive rain is causing significant quality problems and yield losses in many parts of eastern Australia, with chickpeas, lentils and faba beans hard hit. US soybean prices made modest inroads in the end week session, largely on support from soymeal and soyoil gains. Beans were also helped by a strong weekly export sales report. Midwest $3 crush margins is the one million dollar chance for farmers, without it forget about $14, the Export Arbitrage is pretty shut down. Argentina soybean crush tum- bles 9% in September as farmers limit sales. But due to the drought Argentine farmers may opt to plant more land in soy- beans, thus the exchange estimating that the planting area for the oilseed could reach 17 million hectares. Safras and Mercado reported that 19.1% of the 22/23 soy- bean crop has been planted as of 10/14. That was up from 9.7% the prior week, but trailing 21% last year. AgRural esti- mated 24% of the crop was planted through 10/14, up from 10% last week and 22% last year. USDA attaché increased its forecast for soybean planted area to 42.8 million hectares for (marketing year) 2021/22, up previously from 42.5 million hectares. Brazil continues to expand its area due to record-high do- mestic soybean prices. USDA attaché also forecasts a record harvest at 148.5 million metric tons (MMT), increased from 144 MMT previously with planting starting earlier this year as well. The attaché increased the export forecast in 2022/223 to 95.7 MMT, an increase from 92 MMT. USDA attaché revised imports downwards due to ample supplies, now forecast at 300,000 metric tons (MT) for 2022/23. For 2022/23, the attaché revised the forecast for soybeans destined for pro- cessing upward to a record of 50 MMT based on strong de- mand for Brazilian soybean products, especially oil.” China’s soybean imports in September jumped 12% to 7.72 million tonnes from a year earlier, customs data showed, re- versing a months-long trend of low arrivals. The arrivals were slightly higher than some traders had expected. However, though the September arrivals are higher than usual for this