Brazil Ag Exports Operating At Normal Pace
Brazilian pork and poultry processors have no plans to cut production or place workers on paid leave in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Local beef packers in Brazil have slowed the slaughter pace over the last few weeks.
Minerva, a local Brazilian beef packer, said they will halt slaughter at four plants for 10-15 days as coronavirus is impacting operations.
Exports of poultry and pork should not experience any slowdowns.
Given countries like China are still dealing with animal diseases like African swine fever, Brazil will continue to benefit from strong Asian food imports.
On Wednesday, Mar. 18th, Brazil’s port of Santos resolved a 14 day strike with the stevedores.
Santos is one of Brazil’s key ports.
FBN’s Take On What It Means: We view Brazil’s normalized poultry and pork protein export program as neutral for the US farmer. We view that resolving the stevedore strike at the port of Santos has the ability to temper US soybean export sales.
Allendale 2020/21 Corn Acres: 94.631 MA
Allendale, a prominent US agri-analyst, is estimating 2020/21 US corn acres at 94.631 MA and soybean acres at 83.740 MA.
The survey of farmers in 30 states was conducted between March 2nd and March 13th.
The projected 94.63 MA of corn plantings would be above the latest USDA’s forecast for 94.0 MA and above the 89.7 MA planted in 2019.
The projected 83.74 MA of soybean plantings would fall below the latest USDA forecast for 85.0 MA and below the 76.1 MA planted in 2019.
Allendale estimates "other spring" wheat acreage at 12.441 MA and durum plantings at 1.110 MA, down 229,000 from 2019.
FBN’s Take On What It Means: We believe that Allendale’s corn acres estimate could be on the high side but represents a starting point that is realistic. We view the soybean acres estimate as a realistic possibility. However, with the prospect of a wet spring and an entire crop to be sown, we feel that these figures are just a starting point.
The risk of trading futures, hedging, and speculating can be substantial. FBN BR LLC (NFA ID: 0508695)
