-Mexico says U.S. corn imports not impacted by recent GMO declarations
-EU corn crop ideas notably raised
-Attache sees Egypt wheat imports below USDA ideas
-USDA reports corn sold to Mexico – no soybean announcements
-Export Sales solid for all but SBO
 During a meeting with USDA Ag Secretary Vilsack in Iowa, Mexico’s ag minister said imports of U.S. GMO corn will not be limited/restricted moving forward, apparently putting to rest confusion over Mexico’s executive order late last year banning the use of GMO corn for human consumption by He said yellow corn imports from the U.S. will continue to be allowed as it is depended upon “for agro industries.†The cultivation of GMO corn in Mexico will not be allowed.
 Strategie Grains solidly raised their estimate of this year’s EU-27 corn production to 67.5 MMT from 64.9 MMT previously and would be up from last year’s 64.6 MMT amid strong yields as harvest progresses. With the higher production, they lowered estimated 2021/22 EU corn imports to 13.9 MMT from 14.4 MMT previously and would be down slightly from their 2020/21 import ideas. USDA last estimated the EU-27 corn crop at 66.3 MMT, with imports estimated at 15.0 MMT vs 14.2 MMT last year. Strategie Grains slightly raised their estimate of the EU-27 soft wheat crop to 129.5 MMT from 129.1 MMT previously (119.0 MMT last year), while also raising estimated exports by 1 MMT to 32.0 MMT.
 The USDA ag attaché in Egypt sees this year’s wheat imports at 12.4 MMT, moderately below USDA’s official ideas of 13.0 MMT and would be up only marginally from last year’s 12.1 MMT as there are sufficient stocks to allow for the expected modest trend increase in total demand without requiring larger imports.
 Argentina’s ag ministry estimates farmers have sold 31.9 MMT of last year’s harvested soybean crop, reflecting weekly sales of roughly 400k tonnes, now accounting for 74% of total production vs sales at this time last year of 33.5 MMT (68% of the crop). An estimated 42.5 MMT of last year’s corn has been sold (84% of the crop) vs sales a year ago at this time of 38.5 MMT (75% of the crop).
 Tomorrow afternoon, USDA will release the monthly Cattle on Feed report. The average estimate of cattle on feed as of October 1 is 99.4% of last year (98.6-100.0 range of ideas), reflecting an improvement from a month earlier which was down 1.4% (Aug -1.9%, July -1.3%) as September placements are estimated to be up from last year at 101.4 (97.5-104.4 range) following August’s 102.3. September marketings are estimated at 97.5 (97.0-98.9 range) vs 99.6 in August.
ï‚· USDA reported 130k tonnes of corn sold to Mexico this morning. There were no soybean sales announcements, though, which have been expected.
ï‚· Tunisia tendered for 100k tonnes each of optional-origin soft wheat and feed barley for Nov-Dec shipment with offers due by tomorrow.
 Please see our Market Insights post at https://portal.rjobrien.com/MarketInsights/Blog/Read/45546 for details on today’s USDA Export Sales report.
ï‚· U.S. corn sales were 1.273 MMT (50.1 million bushels), towards the upper end of market expectations of 700k-1.4 MMT, up from the previous week’s 40.9 million and were the best of the 2021/22 marketing year so far just outpacing sales two weeks prior of 49.9 million bushels. However, this week’s sales were still considerably below last year’s 72.1 million bushels this week, prompting total commitments of 1.138 billion bushels to fall to only 2.0% above year ago levels.
ï‚· U.S. soybean sales were easily a marketing year high at 2.878 MMT (105.8 million bushels), coming in slightly above the range of market expectations of 1.5-2.5 MMT, as strong sales were anticipated with more than 1.3 MMT in previously-announced sales through the daily reporting system for the period already known. Besides sales to China and unknown, though, the largest sales were to Egypt of a mere 97k tonnes.
ï‚· U.S. wheat sales of 362k tonnes (13.3 mil bu) were within market expectations of 250-650k tonnes, falling from the previous week’s strong 20.9 million bushels and returning to more typical sales seen so far in 2021/22 which have averaged 13.1 million bushels/week.
ï‚· U.S. soybean meal sales were solid at 240k tonnes, within expectations of 150-400k tonnes, but easily beating the roughly 161k tonnes/week average “needed” sales pace, while soybean oil sales remain miniscule with only 3.0k tonnes sold for the week vs market expectations of 4-25k tonnes