May corn +6  ¾ at 5.6725

May beans -1 at 14.0775

The DOW is Down

USD is Down

Crude oil -.44 at 59.33

Good morning,

Overnight grain markets mostly traded higher led by wheat where spring and hrw are reacting to concerns for dryness in the Canadian Prairies and US N Plains, in addition to growing feed demand as values have encouraged cattle feeders to look at hrw as an alternative to high priced corn in some areas. The corn and bean bull spreads are firm from old to new crop with firming basis driving the spreads and in the case of corn, flat price is pushing into the upper end of its trading range. Bean slipped from a couple pennies higher in the old crop to 1 lower headed into the break. The Goldman Roll starts today and could weigh on the front month May contracts as the index funds roll longs out to the July for the next 5 sessions.

Overnight, the corn market was quietly firm, though gains accelerated into the final hour of trade, ultimately finishing six cents higher up-front and a few cents better in the new crop as well. The two headlines of the morning thus far were rather unremarkable? Export sales were in-line; net new sales for 20/21 were 757,000 metric tons (mt), along with an extra 50,000 mt for new crop 21/22. Japan and South Korea were the main buyers of record; China picked-up 99,000 metric tons, though most of that was a 70k switch from ‘unknown’ sales. China also exercised 56,100 metric tons of optional origin sales to non-U.S. origin? Corn Sold + Shipped for 20/21 is now 66.5 million metric tons (mmt), which is now notably above the USDA’s sales forecast (66.0). True, nearly one-half of the sales are yet unshipped, but we think the USDA will likely start raising their projection soon. The other major headline was the CONAB (Brazil gov’t) crop report, which up-ticked first season corn production 1 mmt; the total corn crop is now seen 105 mmt, which is close to current USDA thinking. This is obviously weather pending, with most of the safrinha crop (which is over two-thirds of the total) freshly-planted. Expect spreads to be a major feature of trade today; the Goldman Roll kicks-off today and will carry-on for one full week. We also have a monthly USDA report tomorrow.

Farmers Averaging $20/Acre or Less in Nascent U.S. Carbon Market: A small fraction of U.S. farmers who have pursued contracts for capturing carbon in the soil – an incentive for climate mitigation – say the going rate is $20 an acre or less, said Purdue University. Payment rates of $15 or $20 are commonly mentioned at present for each ton of carbon dioxide that is sequestered or preserved through reduced emissions. At those prices, growers could spend more on cover crops than they would see in a carbon payment. The seed, equipment, and labor for cover crops ranges from $15 to $75 an acre, says the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Outreach initiative. On the other hand, Midwestern farmers spent hundreds of dollars an acre to grow corn and soybeans in recent years with relatively small returns, if any, on rented land.

French Sugar Beets Face Freeze Losses: Exceptionally cold weather this week may have severely damaged up to 10% of France’s sugar beet area, potentially forcing farmers to replant affected fields, growers’ group CGB said. The group estimated that between roughly 25,000 and 100,000 acres of recently sown sugar beet had suffered massive losses that would require replanting, Timothe Masson, an analyst at the CGB, told Reuters on Wednesday. CGB previously estimated this year’s sugar beet area at around 988,000 acres, already about -6% less than in 2020. The arrival of intense cold just as sugar beet was emerging from the soil is thought to have caused extensive damage in a swathe of cropland south of Paris, Masson said. Tereos, France’s biggest sugar maker, said on Twitter it was assessing damage with its cooperative growers and was in contact with seed suppliers after an “unprecedented phenomenon”.

Darren, David, and Elizabeth