International wheat prices improve

Argus is an independent analyst of global energy and commodity markets, and part of its service is to track the Free-on-Board price of major grain exporting countries.

The predominant milling wheat qualities sold from exporters such as Argentina, the European Union, Russia and Ukraine have all lifted steadily over recent weeks.

This general lift has flowed through to Australian grain prices, with an increase in buyer appetite evident.

There has been an increase in the number of buyers searching for grain offered for sale on Clear Grain Exchange and actively bidding on parcels of grain that growers have offered for sale.

There were 53 different buyer businesses that increased their bids to match grower offer prices and purchase grain through CGX last week, with more buyers searching for grain offered.

It's a new record number of buyers purchasing grain through CGX within a single week, eclipsing the previous record of 49 in February 2022 and is indicative of the improved buyer appetite for grain.

The lift in buyer engagement is across every state, with 23 buyers purchasing grain in Vic last week, 19 in WA, 17 in SA, and 17 across NSW and Qld.

Growers are directly impacting the lift in buyer engagement by offering grain for sale at a price they will sell for to all buyers, and it's yielding better prices than advertised published bids.

Global markets remain focused on northern hemisphere spring weather forecasts and crop conditions, with prices building in some risk premium.

Last week the United States Department of Agriculture updated its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.

There were no major surprises overall and the market viewed the WASDE as neutral to bearish corn and slightly more bearish wheat, which was interesting.

Market participants were expecting a larger reduction in the Argentine corn production than the USDA's estimate of 55 million tonnes versus the Buenos Aires Exchange at 49.5mt.

Remember that Argentina is expected to be the largest contributor to the projected increase in global corn supply this year, according to the USDA.

Another observation was US all-wheat ending stocks increased, yet the predominant crop of hard-red-winter wheat, which is planted and growing, had stocks decreasing.

This means there is a lot riding on weather conditions in the northern hemisphere in coming months to produce spring crops such as US hard wheat and corn that have just begun planting.