Chatter in the wheat world continues to surround the rare opportunities seen by the US to export into some unlikely locations. These include Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Traditionally Indonesia would import around 1 million tonnes of wheat per month, with Australian wheat making up a significant portion of this. With Aussie wheat struggling to find its way off shore at the moment, the US is looking more and more like a likely source. Indonesia has not imported US Soft Red Winter wheat for five years.

The corn market is continuing to hover around 380 cents per bushel in anticipation of the USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report due out on Friday. The final yield will be the market’s main focus point, with many suggesting that it is should be lower. This could give the corn market the kick in the backside it needs, considering demand remains slow, and ethanol continuies to burden the market with negative margins

The bean market remains somewhat predictable, with an expected record amount of stocks on the horizon in Friday’s WASDE report. The trade deal with China remains a factor, with additional tariffs set to be enforced on the 2 March. Overnight, we saw 586,000t of soybeans sold to China, along with 182,000t to an unknown destination.

Domestically, we are seeing a squeeze in barley prices on the back of China threatening a tariff on imports as a response to its anti-dumping investigation into Australian barley. We need to either see some Saudi interest over the Chinese New Year period, or for China to let up. Aussie exporters have until Monday to respond to the current anti-dumping allegations. With more rain falling, and more on the horizon, the chances of Queensland’s prized Channel Country beef-cattle area benefiting have increased.