Due to the holiday on Monday, this week’s regular USDA and EIA reports will be delayed one day. Accordingly, Export Inspections and Crop Progress will be released today, the EIA’s ethanol data released on Thursday and Export Sales on Friday. The CFTC’s COT data will be released on Friday as usual, though.
 Ukraine new crop wheat for export prices have been rising amid increasing concerns of a reduced crop this year. Over the last week, 12.5% protein wheat for July-August delivery increased $6/tonne to $197-$201/tonne fob Black Sea according to APK-Inform. Overall ideas of this year’s Ukrainian wheat crop have largely been in the 24-25 MMT range vs last year’s 28.3 MMT, while the country’s state-run meteorological agency sees the winter wheat crop, which accounts for around 95% of total wheat production, at 23.3 MMT. Rains of late have been improved, which should help limit further losses. On the other side of the equation, though, despite old crop, 2019/20, wheat exports reaching the government’s export quota of 20.2 MMT, a deputy economy minister said wheat exports will continue, specifically saying, “We do not plan any restriction.†For months, comments have been made that wheat exports will be halted once the 20.2 MMT quota has been reached for the current marketing year which runs through June.
ï‚· Russian new crop wheat export values also rose over the last week, with SovEcon putting 12.5% protein Black Sea supplies for July delivery at $202/tonne fob, up $6/tonne from last week. Improved rains in dry areas of the south were seen last week, with additional rains expected this week, clearly benefitting regions which have struggled the most this year. Conditions in most other areas remain favorable.
ï‚· USDA reported the sale of 264k tonnes of soybeans to China this morning, with 66k tonnes for old crop 2019/20 delivery and 198k tonnes for 2020/21. USDA also reported 216k tonnes of soybean meal sold to unknown for 2019/20 this morning, as well.
 Despite severe labor issues due to the coronavirus pandemic, India’s state-run food agency has been able to procure 34.1 MMT of wheat so far from this year’s harvest, matching the total procured all of last year. Procurement will continue in the weeks/months ahead with this year’s target for purchases set at 40.7 MMT. An all-time record wheat crop of 107.2 MMT is currently forecast vs last year’s 103.6 MMT.
ï‚· Brazilian trade data showed soybean exports through the first three weeks of May were 12.2 MMT (~450 million bushels) vs 10.3 MMT exported during the entire month of May last year, while April exports set an all-time monthly record of 16.3 MMT.
 A wire service survey of South African ag industry participants showed average expectations of the country’s corn crop this year at 15.46 MMT, up sharply from last year’s 11.275 MMT.
 China’s soybean imports from Brazil in April were 5.9 MMT vs 2.1 MMT in March and 5.8 MMT last year according to official Chinese trade data. Previously-reported total imports for the month of 6.714 MMT compared to 4.28 MMT in March and 7.64 MMT last year. With the surge in exports out of Brazil over the last two months, Chinese soybean imports in May, June and July are all expected to be over 9 MMT vs last year’s 3-month total of 22.5 MMT.
 Friday afternoon’s Cattle on Feed report as of May 1 was 94.9% of last year vs the average estimate of 95.1% and followed the previous month’s 94.5%. April placements were 77.7% of last year, vs the average estimate of 77.4%, at 1.732 million head, the lowest for April since 2012 in just beating 1.731 million that year and then the second lowest since 1996. March placements were the lowest for the data series going back 25 years. April marketings were 75.7% of last year vs the average estimate of 75.1% and were easily the lowest for the series going back to 1996.
Weather
Rains fell across much of the Midwest over the holiday weekend, with near 100% coverage west of the MS River of mostly .75-1.5â€, although amounts in eastern NE and SW IA were in the 2â€+ range, while east of the river saw 70% coverage of mostly .40-1.25â€. On and off rains are
expected for the next 5 days with combined totals in the .50-1.25†range. The only area to not see much rain fall this week will be the NW ½ of MN. Ridging is expected to develop in the 6-10 day period across the SE and central US, causing most of the rain activity to be pushed north into the upper Midwest and north of most of the growing regions. The exceptions look to be MN and far northern IA, where rains of .50-1†are seen by the very end of the period. The ridging that develops in the 6-10 day period is indicated to continue through the 11-15 day period as well, with a flattening out of the ridge indicated towards the end of the period (June 10-11), allowing rains to occur in most areas.
