Australia: Australian milk production for February stood at just over 630m litres, a 2.5% increase compared with last year. After a difficult 2016/17 milking season, February marks the ninth consecutive month that Australian milk production has risen in the 2017/18 season.

China: Chinese grain and oilseed imports fell across the board in February. Soya bean imports fell 2% to 5.4m tonnes, while barley imports were down almost 25% to 620,000t. Rapeseed imports fell 35% to just under 363,000t, while sorghum imports were back 25% to 556,000t.

Argentina: Argentina exported close to 21,300t of beef cuts in February – a near 50% increase compared with last year. China accounted for almost half of beef exports from Argentina, buying almost 11,000t. Israel and Chile are the next largest export markets for Argentinian beef.

America: The US Department of Agriculture has revised upwards its forecast for US milk production in 2018. The new forecast pegs US milk supply in 2018 at 96bn litres, or 1.6% up on 2017 production. This equates to an extra 1.5bn litres of milk from US dairy farms.