sunflower seeds – Agri Limpopo

Spotlight on sunflower seed market

Arithmus — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 07:36:39 +0000

Yesterday the national Crop Estimates Committee lifted its forecasts for 2017/18 sunflower seed production by 8 percent from last month to 858 605 tonnes. This was underpinned by higher than initially expected yields in the late-planted areas of the Free State and North West provinces. These provinces collectively account for 95 percent share of the expected harvest. Worth noting is that the average national yield this season is estimated at 1.43 tonnes per hectare, which is highest in 10-years.
We believe that this upward revision will have minimal impact on the market as it was in line with expectations, following large producer deliveries in the past couple of weeks. In the week of 17 August 2018, about 98 percent of the estimated harvest had already been delivered to commercial silos. At midday, SAGIS will provide an update for the week of 24 August 2018.
The expected large harvest has boosted the country’s sunflower seed supplies. The most recent data from SAGIS shows that South Africa’s sunflower seed ending stock amounted to 584 280 tonnes in July 2018, up by 26 percent from the volume seen the previous month. With that said, this is still 18 percent lower than the corresponding period last year. This is partially due to the fact that the estimated harvest is still 2 percent lower than the 2016/17 production season and the fact that a notable share of the harvest occurred earlier this month. Therefore, the stocks for August 2018 could potentially show an uptick. An update on this will be released on 25 September 2018.
Furthermore, the improvement in production prospects implies that South Africa’s sunflower seed imports could decline in the coming month as processors will potentially rely on local supplies. This, however, will not make a meaningful impact in the market. South Africa has already imported 469 tonnes of sunflower seed in the 2018/19 marketing year, which equates to 94 percent of the seasonal expectations.

Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness Research

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South African Agricultural Commodities Weekly Wrap

Arithmus — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 10:17:57 +0000

One key factor that shaped South Africa’s grain and oilseed price performance this week was the recovery of the rand against the US dollar. Amongst other factors, this led to notable losses on SAFEX white and yellow maize, and sunflower seed spot prices, with each down by 2 percent from last week. The wheat spot price was also down by a percentage point from last week.
Aside from price movements, the focus in the market has slightly shifted towards the 2018/19 summer crop production season which commenced this month in the eastern parts of the country.
Most weather agencies show a likelihood of above-normal rainfall between November 2018 and January 2019, with the possibility of an El Niño-induced drought later in summer. Next week, the Crop Estimate Committee will release the ‘intentions of farmers to plant’ data which should give an indication of the 2018/19 maize crop.
The SAFEX beef carcass market experienced a quiet week with prices unchanged from levels seen last week. In terms of the supply, the South African farmers slaughtered 211 951 head of cattle in August 2018, down by 11 percent from August 2017 due to the herd rebuilding process after a reduction during the 2015-16 drought.

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Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness research

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Good Improvement in SA Soil Moisture

Arithmus — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 07:41:16 +0000

Although there is uncertainty about the weather outlook later in the 2018/19 summer season with talks of a possible El Niño, the planting period started on good footing. South Africa has had well-timed rain events so far which have improved soil moisture for early planting in the eastern and central regions (see Figure 1).
The planting process has begun in several areas and is set to gain momentum over the next couple of weeks. This is all due to improved soil moisture in the eastern regions, as previously mentioned, and also prospects of widespread higher rainfall in the first week of November, which will further uplift soil moisture and thereafter encourage farmers in the western areas of South Africa to also commence with planting activity.
This is all unsurprising as the optimal planting window for yellow maize and soybeans growing areas, the eastern and central regions of South Africa, opened earlier this month and expected to continue until late November. White maize and sunflower seed optimal planting window will only open at the beginning of next month in the western regions of South Africa and continue until late December.
As we have been highlighting throughout the week, tomorrow we will get a sense of South Africa’s 2018/19 maize area planting when the Crop Estimate Committee releases its monthly data.
For context, the South African farmers planted 2.3 million hectares of white and yellow commercial maize in the 2017/18 production season, down by 12 percent year-on-year. In the same season, the communal farmers or non-commercial maize planting was about 314 835 hectares, down by 14 percent from the 2016/17 production season.

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Sourced: Agbiz Morning Market Viewpoint on Agri-Commodities

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Late rain, late start of SA sunflower seed plantings

Arithmus — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 07:42:19 +0000

The optimal planting window opened at the beginning of this month in the sunflower seed growing areas, but it is still a fairly quiet period in the fields as the expected rainfall has not yet materialised in most areas. This is not much of an issue because the optimal planting window will open until early January 2019.
With that being said, we maintain our view that it would be ideal if farmers in areas with better soil moisture could begin the planting as soon as possible so that the pollination period could occur early next year when there is still a good chance for higher rainfall.
If the planting activity starts late, then the pollination process of the crop could coincide with the expected drier weather conditions between the end of January and March 2019. This could result in poor yields in some areas, depending on the soil moisture levels.
Aside from the aforementioned weather developments, there is a bit of despondency in that sunflower seed market as the recent data from the Crop Estimate Committee suggests that 2018/19 sunflower seed planting could decline by 4 percent from the previous season to 575 000 hectares, which is slightly below the long-term average area of 576 490 hectares are still tentative. Be that as it may, it is worth highlighting that these are ‘intentions’ not the actual plantings, we will get a much clearer view when the Committee releases its preliminary area estimate on 29 January 2019.
On the global front, yesterday the EU’s sunflower seed price was down by 1.37 percent from the previous day, closing at US$360 per tonne. This was partly underpinned by negative spillover from lower palm oil prices. Moreover, the expectations of a fairly large global harvest of 51 million tonnes, up by 4 percent from the previous day, also added a bearish sentiment to the market. The key contributing countries to the expected large harvest are Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, China and Hungary.

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Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness Research

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SA farmers increased summer crop area planting

Arithmus — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 06:22:18 +0000

The recently released first estimate for South Africa’s 2018/19 summer grains and oilseeds area plantings and production proved just how difficult it is to make predictions in a drier season. Fortunately, the numbers leaned more to the positive than the reduction that market analysts, ourselves included, previously feared. South African farmers planted 3.7 million hectares of all summer grains and oilseeds, up by 3% from the previous estimate, but still down by 3% from the 2017/18 season. From a yield perspective, the numbers are somewhat disappointing but not gloomier. For example, South Africa’s maize production is estimated at 10.5 million tonnes, slightly below the lower end of market expectations of 10.7 million tonnes. Given that South Africa consumes roughly 10.8 million tonnes a year, if the aforementioned harvest materialises, the country would have sufficient supplies in 2019/20 marketing year, accounting for an opening stock of 3.5 million tonnes which will add into the supplies.

To dive into more details, white maize area plantings were revised up to 1.3 million hectares from last month, while yellow maize area plantings were slashed from the previous estimate to 1.0 million hectares. This then boosted the production expectations to 5.2 million tonnes of white maize and 5.3 million tonnes of yellow maize. Although this will put South Africa in better footing than we previously feared, it is 16% lower than the 2017/18 harvest due to expectations of poor yields in some areas, following erratic rainfall at the start of the season.

Moreover, the 2018/19 soybean plantings were revised down from last month by 2% to 730 500 hectares. This is 8% lower than the 2017/18 production season. From a yield perspective, production could amount to 1.3 million tonnes, which is slightly below our expectations of 1.4 million tonnes, and 17% lower than the 2017/18 season. Sunflowers seed area plantings were revised up from last month, and that captures the increased activity after late rainfall in parts of the North West. Be that as it may, production is still set to be 16% less than the 2017/18 production season (Figure 1). Other small grains harvest, sorghum and dry beans could be up from last season.

Going forward, the weather will be an important determinate of whether South Africa receives a better harvest or not. At the moment, the outlook is favourable, with the South African Weather Service indicating a possibility of above-normal rainfall between February and April 2019 over most summer grains and oilseeds growing areas.

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Sourced: Agbiz, Agribusiness Research

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