Market Outlook – Wheat

Wheat futures markets to levels not seen in around five years. Wheat markets have been digesting the larger crop sentiment for about a month now and there is a good understanding that the Australian and Argentinian crops will be of good quality. We have seen a stabilizing and even a slight increase in global wheat bids from export locations and there is the rolling idea that although many key regions are behind on exports, we know that import demand isforecasted to come to the market by many key agencies. The market is of the notion that although global crop sizes have increased, global demand is still there. We remain hesitant to make major sales at the current time amidst harvest pressure and typical seasonality of markets.

Market Outlook – Durum

Canadian crop size has been increasing as producers get into harvest, with Statistics Canada estimating the crop at 6.5 mmt up from 6.1 mmt in their August estimate. The crop size is larger than last years’ total volume. Global import demand is expected to drop from 9.2mmt last year to 8.6mmt this year, with larger global production being penciled in at 37.2mmt vs last year’s 36.4mmt of which Canada will account for 6.5mmt of that. The EU crop is estimated at 8.3 mmt vs 7.2 mmt last year. Global ending stocks this year are expected to be at 7.5mmt vs 6.7 mmt last year and Canadian durum will need to be competitive. Quality of durum unharvested in thefields of the Canadian prairies could become a market factor if we begin to see degrading factors from the durum crop that was yet to come off before the rain event.