2019 wheat harvest tracking quite late
Wheat markets were pressured lower last week by the northern hemisphere harvest accelerating and some outside pressure by corn and soybean markets thanks to heightened trade war tensions.
Progress last week in North American was slowed a bit last week by rain and cooler temperatures and generally speaking, across the region, the harvest of spring cereals is behind their usual averages.
In Manitoba, combining on spring wheat is about half of what it was at this time year ago with just 35% cut as of a week ago.
In Saskatchewan, only the first few durum fields are being cut into, about two weeks behind their normal start dates. Similar delays are being suggested in Alberta.
Through August 25th, the USDA says that 38% of the U.S. spring wheat is harvested, literally half of what was combined by this time a year ago, as well as well behind the 65% that’s usually in the bin by the last weekend of August.
The wheat harvest in Ukraine is basically complete and total production is estimated by the Ag Ministry there as 28.2 MMT, up 14% year-over-year (USDA’s current estimate is 29.2 MMT).
The Ukrainian Ag Ministry is also estimating this year’s wheat exports from the country to hit 21 MMT (USDA at 19.5 MMT), which, if realized, would be a jump of more than 30% year-overyear.
Next door, nearly half of Russian wheat fields have been combined, with the accumulated harvest almost at 54 MMT (the USDA is expecting a 73 MMTharvest in Russia this year).
Moving back across the Atlantic Ocean, in their monthly report of supply and demand estimates for Canadian crops, Agriculture Canada revised the potential for this year’s Canadian wheat crop slightly higher, namely for the wheat harvest.
The Canadian durum production number was raised by 100,000 MT, and with no demand changes, carryout was raised by the same amount to 1.2 MMT. While this is still a 25% / 400,000 MT reduction year-over-year, average 2019/20 durum prices are forecasted to be 10% below the five-year average at $250 CAD/MT (or $5.10 USD and $6.80 CAD per bushel when converting metric tonnes to bushels).
If we think more globally about durum, the International Grains Council is expecting the 2019/20 worldwide harvest to be to 36.5 MMT, which would be down 1.6 MMT, or 4%, from last year. This includes U.S. durum production falling 540,000 MT (or about 25%) year-over-year to 1.56 MMT this year. With some stronger food demand, global durum ending stocks for 2019/20 should come in at 8.2 MMT, down 1.2 MMT or 13% from 2018/19’s ending stocks.
Comparably, the Canadian non-durum wheat harvest was raised by AAFC to 27.4 MMT, up 400,000 MT from last month’s estimate, mainly thanks to expanded acres planted outlined by StatsCan back in June. Demand was raised a little, but Canada’s non-durum wheat ending stocks were pegged at 4.3 MMT, up nearly 20% from 2018/19’s carryout.