USDA WASDE figures out this week upped Russian wheat 1.5MMT from 76.5MMT in July to 78MMT.
Many had been anticipating a larger increase, but with 45% of the wheat harvest still to go, and the Russian ministry of agriculture continuing to hold at 75MMT, it looks like WASDE took a cautious approach.
There are also some questions about how many hectares are out there.
Two weeks ago, the state statistics department increased their wheat hectare estimation from 28.8MHA to 29.4MHA, and some of this increase was winter wheat, which begs the question, where had it been hiding these last eight months.
Either way, we are still looking at a big Russian wheat crop, the second-largest ever, although given the low yields in the south, will more of the export fraction now have to be sourced from further up country?
WASDE upped Ukraine wheat 0.5MMT from 26.5MMT to 27.0MMT, and with 90% of the crop now cut it’s looking likely to be around there.
That should give an export potential of 16MMT, although don’t be surprised if that goes higher as Ukraine will need the cash unless they are bailed out by the EU or US.
Conditions elsewhere in the Black Sea and parts of Romania and Moldova are struggling with the dry conditions.
Reports from Romania that an entire county lost almost all their arable crops to drought; local authorities in Galati County are declaring the region a disaster area as 180,000 hectares are said to be affected.
Farmers in Moldova continue to press the government for support, saying they will block roads for two hours a day for two weeks unless the government takes action; the government had previously allocated €50/HA for damaged crops, farmers say they have losses of over €300/HA.
Over in Belarus and factory workers are striking in protest to the violence being meted out by Lukashenko’s goons, who he released on the population after the initial protests following last Sundays rigged elections.
I give it a week before he’s helicoptered out to spend his retirement in Rostov where he and Yanukovych can tell each other how unfair it all was.
Жыве Беларусь!