#Brazil says it can increase grain planting by 5% a year without deforestation. Planting today is about 77M hectares (190M acres), and the plan is to convert about 40M hectares (99M acres) of low productivity pasture into cropland. Gov't plans to incentivize the conversion.
Jan. 18: CBOT #soymeal futures are the highest ever for the date. March reached a contract high Wednesday of $487/short ton before settling a few dollars lower ($478.10). This chart shows other years with elevated early-year meal prices. 2021 held the prior record for Jan.
Although Wednesday's settle of 64.12 cents/lb in March CBOT #soyoil futures is far from the flashy 70-80+ levels seen over the past year, it's record high for the date. But #soymeal is relatively stronger. At around 0.40, oilshare is among the lightest levels in the last 2 years.
Farmers in Mato Grosso, #Brazil may have grown a huge crop of #soybeans this year, but they have been hesitant on sales, limiting available market supply. As of mid-January, farmers had sold 41% of their crop - the slowest mid-Jan pace in over 5 years. Average is 54%.
The #corn growing season is only just starting in Mato Grosso, but sales of the upcoming crop (23%) are critically behind the year-ago pace (46%, which also = the avg pace for mid-Jan). Almost all Mato Grosso's corn is 2nd crop, and the state is #Brazil's #1 corn & soy grower.
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#Brazil is uncomfortably close to dethroning the USA as the world's top #corn exporter. Could happen as early as next year even if the crop rebounds in 2023.Per USDA, USA's advantage in the 2022/23 trade year is just 2.5 million tonnes.
65% of the United States is abnormally dry this week, the smallest portion since early Sept. and down from the early Nov. peak of 85% (Nov. 15, shown, was 82%). Lots of improvement in the east and in California, but severe drought still threatens #wheat in the Plains.
Previous thread on the huge precip event in California:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/91929/
