| Getting in the fields was a top priority for Missouri farmers this week, as the weather turned favorable for planting conditions. Dodging tornadoes has become another challenge in the delta. This is a welcomed development, as Missouri is the only southern state that didn’t register on the crop progress report on April 3, though a close second was Mississippi with only 1% in the ground. Louisiana is showing 68% planted, but it would appear they are a bit beyond that at the time of writing. Arkansas is at 5% planting, on trend with the 5-year average, and Texas is at 35% planted, well below the 5-year average of 49% at this time of year. Though California is never planted this early, there has been zero field work done because of rainstorms that keep coming, along with cold, windless weather that is not conducive to drying out the heavy clay soil. With each new storm, speculation is that fewer medium grain acres will be sown because of prevented planting. Overall, the market is looking forward to a successful planting season with an increase of acreage in all states, except Texas where drought has handcuffed farmer planting intentions. There was a slew of USDA GAIN reports recently published, and we will summarize relevant information for the rice industry in Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico this week. We will look at Venezuela and Ghana next week. In Peru, grain production as a whole has been impacted by a prolonged drought in 2022, and now flooding in 2023. The rice area harvested is expected to decrease by 1.4% this year, down to 1.013 million acres. Rice is a staple food in Peru, with a per capita consumption of 163 pounds per year. Filling the gap from a decreased production figure will come in the form of more imports. Unfortunately, U.S. rice is not price competitive, so the additional rice is expected to come from Brazil and Uruguay, where the countries enjoy a market share of 57% and 41%, respectively. Just this week new sales from Brazil were noted for Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, etc. In Ecuador, rice is a staple food where nearly all 773,000 acres of harvested rice are consumed domestically, save for appx 100,000 acres that are reserved for export business. The primary export customers are Colombia and Peru. In Ecuador, the per capita consumption is 110 lbs per year. Rice imports are politically sensitive in Ecuador because rice self-sufficiency has been highly promoted by the government. The government has set farm gate prices at levels significantly higher than prices in the world market and neighboring countries to encourage plantings to achieve this goal, and ultimately export excess supplies. In Mexico, the post expects the import figure to remain at 800 TMT for another year, but with a larger percentage of that rice coming from non-U.S. suppliers because of anti-inflationary policies and the continued loss of market share in the region. Post does expect the planted area to decrease slightly in Mexico, however, because farmers are facing so many pressures. Domestic rice now competes with lower priced zero tariff rice under the anti-inflation programs, and with rising input costs, rice is not the preferred crop to grow that it once was. These issues will be an important focus of the Rice Market & Technology Convention scheduled to take place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, from May 31 through June 1. Go to www.ricemtconvention.com to register. In Asia, there was a significant announcement made by the government of Indonesia to import 2 million metric tons to replenish emergency stocks. While this doesn’t come as a complete surprise, it does provide more strength to an already firming market in the far east. Viet prices bumped again slightly to $470pmt, and Thai prices remain firm at $480pmt. There is chatter that India is perhaps relaxing their tariff, which could dampen any price rises that may come about from this announcement. |
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