Currencies

The £ has seen a slight rise this week, although has hit resistance again at 1.39 against the $. This looks to have been driven by the downturn in infection rates, despite opening everything up on 19th July and the changing of quarantine rules for foreign travel. In another positive step, the Bank of England appear to be moving away from suggestions that the UK would need quantitative easing measure to help keep inflation down. The $ has been struggling with the increased levels of the Delta variant across the US and the Feds Monetary Policy meeting this week was due to be centred around looking at any additional financial aid packages which may be needed if restrictions come back into force.

Wheat

Harvest has officially started with UK farmers making good progress on the barley and rapeseed over the past couple of weeks and now looking to cut wheat over the weekend in some parts of the country, weather permitting!

In Europe the harvest is behind with France around 19% complete versus the normal 64% for this time of year. As expected, quality is variable and there are concerns in the very short term that some of the shipments due to the UK to plug the gap between old crop and harvest really getting underway, may well now be delayed and cause supply issues.

Russia so far appear to be on target for their harvest pace although no real data on quality has been available yet. With Russia looking to contribute around 20% of the total exportable wheat, this will be a key area to watch for prices. US markets have moved lower week on week with better rain prospects across the Midwest.

Soya

Soya prices have continued to move down and have given us the first lot of prices for the winter sub £350 delivered. This has continued off the back of the US wheat story with better weather forecast over the next two weeks as we approach the real key pod development phase.

There has also been a noticeable drop off in Chinese buying of around 18% month on month, the largest drop in over a year. Hog margins are currently extremely low meaning that more wheatfeed is now being used in place of soya in the diets.

And Finally…
Missing holidays?

Regards,
Kay Johnson & Martin Humphrey