-USDA attache sees good Australian wheat crop but down from last year
-USDA attache sees slow China hog rebuilding
-Morocco expects bumper wheat crop
-Brazil can crush seen near 10-year low
-USDA Oilseeds Crushings report out Monday
-First notice day May deliveries see soybean/SBO delivered
 USDA’s monthly Oilseeds Crushings report will be out on Monday. The average estimate of March U.S. soybean crush is 188.4 million bushels (188.0-189.2 million range of ideas) vs 164.3 million in February and would be down 2.0% from last year’s 192.2 million. NOPA March crush was down 1.9% from last year. The average estimate of end March U.S. soybean oil stocks is 2.317 billion pounds (2.250-2.351 billion range) vs 2.306 billion in February and 2.327 billion last year. The average estimate reflects U.S. total stocks 30.8% larger than NOPA stocks, which is right in line with the average difference between the two so far in 2020/21.
 The USDA ag attaché in Australia sees another large wheat crop in 2021/22 at 27.0 MMT, but down from last year’s record 33.0 MMT based an expected return to average yields. However, with old crop ending stocks estimated to surge to 5.9 MMT (USDA 5.6 MMT) from 2.9 MMT the year prior, new crop wheat exports have the potential to remain very strong. While the attaché is estimating 2021/22 Australian wheat exports at 19.0 MMT vs 23.0 MMT this year (USDA 22.0 MMT), they are allowing wheat stocks to further build to 6.6 MMT, which would be well above the 5-year average stocks from 2014/15-2018/19 of 4.7 MMT, indicating there clearly is room in the balance sheet for exports to be stronger than the attaché’s estimate, demand pending. The attaché sees a solid decline in Australian barley production this year to 10.0 MMT from 13.0
MMT last year, due to lower area and yields, prompting an expected sharp decline in exports to 4.5 MMT from this year’s 7.0 MMT.
 The USDA ag attaché in China said the resurgence in African swine fever outbreaks in China is likely to prevent a rebound in the swine population until at least mid-2021 as losses continued through the first quarter of the year. They said China recently issued regulations restricting the movement of live animals, effective May 1, in attempts to control further spread. Breeding sow numbers declined by 20-50% in areas impacted by the new outbreaks.
 Morocco is expecting a bumper wheat crop this year of 7.16 MMT vs last year’s USDA-estimated severely drought-impacted 2.56 MMT, with the barley crop rebounding strongly to 2.6 MMT from 640k tonnes last year. Morocco’s wheat imports are directly impacted by the crop size. In recent years of wheat production around 7 MMT, annual imports were only around 3.7 MMT, while current year imports following last year’s disastrous crop were 6.5 MMT.
ï‚· French soft wheat crop conditions declined to 81% good/excellent from 85% g/e the week prior (57% g/e last year), while winter barley declined to 77% g/e from 81% and spring barley to 82% g/e from 87% the previous week following continued dry conditions, along with the impacts from early April freezes. Overall conditions, though, good in historical terms.
ï‚· The CME further raised May soybean futures maintenance margins to $4100/contract from $3825 previously.
 Brazil’s center-south sugarcane crush is expected to decline sharply in 2021/22 (Apr-Mar) to 558 MMT from 605 MMT last year and would be the lowest since 2012 according to some ideas. Accordingly, this year’s sugar production ideas of 35.6 MMT compare to 38.5 MMT last year, while estimated ethanol production of 27.3 billion liters (7.2 billion gallons) would be down sharply from last year’s 30.4 bil liters (8.0 bil gal).
ï‚· Today was first notice day for May deliveries. There were no corn deliveries, as expected, but soybeans saw 66 contracts put out by Cargill (last trade date 2/11/21) vs expectations for no deliveries, while there were also 629 contracts of soybean oil delivered (LTD 4/23/21), also all by Cargill, with wire services indicating no delivery were expected. Soybean meal deliveries were minimal at 9 contracts (LTD 2/25/21) vs ideas of 0-100. There were no CBOT wheat deliveries vs ideas of 0-200 contracts, but KCBT deliveries were heavy at 590 contracts (LTD 4/27/21) vs ideas ranging from zero to 800 contracts. MPLS wheat deliveries were 337 contracts (LTD 3/31/21), all by CHS, vs ideas for 0-300 contracts.
Weather
NOTE: We have added weather model-estimated precip summary tables to our daily comments. The tables summarize the GFS and European model’s estimated precip by region and by period, along with the change in estimated precip from the forecast 24 hours prior. The U.S. table below compiles estimated state-average precip forecasts into regional averages: WCB (NE, MN, IA, MO), ECB (IL, IN, OH, WI), S. Plains (KS, OK, TX), N. Plains (ND, SD). On the following page, tables including precip estimates by state, as well as Brazilian safrinha corn areas and Ukraine production areas are also available.
Precip activity over the last 24 hours in the corn belt included .25-1.25†with 20% coverage (primarily IN/OH) with the Southern Plains seeing .25â€-1.25†mostly in TX.