Argentina wheat sales hit fresh low

Argentinian wheat sales in the week to 5 October dropped to their lowest since March 2020 on mounting concerns over drought-induced harvest losses.

Argentinian farmer wheat sales totalled nearly 82,000t in the past reporting week, down from 103,400t a week ago and 530,000t a year ago. Of this, just 9,000t were for the 2022-23 crop, with the remainder for the current year's harvest. About 75pc of the 2022-23 crop was earmarked for exports, while more than 80pc of the 2021-22 crop was headed to the domestic market.

This brought accumulated 2022-23 wheat sales to 5.3mn t, lagging year-ago levels of 7.8mn t. Meanwhile, 2021-22 crop wheat sales stood at 22.3mn t, ahead of year-earlier levels of 16.5mn t.

Weakening sales and unfavourable prospects for the harvest prompted the US Department of Agriculture to revise down projections for Argentina's 2022-23 wheat exports to 12mn t on 12 October, from 13mn t expected previously. This would also be below the 16.25mn t estimated for 2021-22.

As for corn, weekly new-crop export sales rose to 314,000t in the latest reporting week, up by 190,000t from seven days earlier. Accumulated new-crop corn sales now reached 5.2mn t, lagging year-ago levels of 7.8mn t.

Oilseeds

Old-crop soybean sales fell sharply, by 1.4mn t, to 376,000t, following the expiry of the government's favourable US dollar exchange rate for trade of the crop.

About 214,000t of this total were destined for the domestic market, with the rest sold for exports. At the same time, new-crop sales rose by 8,800t on the week to 103,000t, with the entire volume sold to the domestic market.

Accumulated old-crop soybean sales reached 30.7mn t, which lagged year-ago levels of 31.5mn t.

By Michael Hanbury