Soya bean futures prices fell this week after the US raised its yield forecasts. Soya bean futures for November were down 2.3% to just over $9/bu.

The drop reflected an upgrade in the USDA’s forecast for the domestic soya bean yield this year of 0.5bu/acre to 49.9bu/acre.

France

France is set for its biggest sugar beet harvest in at least 25 years. France’s farm ministry has pegged it at 40.5m tonnes – a rise of nearly 6m tonnes year on year. This represents the latest in a series of upbeat reports on beet output from countries in the European Union.

Brazil

Farmers in Brazil are hoarding maize in the hope of higher prices. It looks like they are succeeding, in that Brazilian maize prices rose 9% month on month, taking values to their highest since mid-May, reaching $3.75/bu.

World grain stocks will hit a record high in 2017-18 it seems as a result of a bumper Russian barley and wheat harvest. The FAO hiked its forecast by 15m tonnes to 719.2m tonnes for world grain inventories at the close of 2017-18. This is 2% above the last estimate carried out in 2016-2017.

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