Global wheat markets have rallied in the last week due to revised US stocks.

Last week, the USDA September quarterly grain stocks report predicted a 14-year low for US wheat stocks.

The USDA estimated wheat stocks, as of 1 September, was at 48.4 million tonne (Mt). This was below the analysts’ estimate of 50.4Mt in a Reuters Poll.

As a result, Chicago wheat futures (December 2021) gained 4.4% across the week to close Friday at a six-week high.

Downwards

In this report, 2021 US wheat production was revised down 1.4Mt from the September World Agricultural Supply & Demand Estimate (WASDE), the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) in the UK reports.

This information meant commodity funds were largely net buyers of wheat on Thursday and Friday last week.

On Thursday, the European Commission raised wheat production up 3.8Mt on the month to 131.0Mt, while exports remained unchanged at 30.0Mt.

Despite this, Paris milling wheat (December 2021) gained 4.3% across the week to close at a contract high of €264.25/t.

Maize

Maize quarterly stocks were pegged at 31.4Mt, higher than the Reuters poll estimate of 29.3Mt, but the Chicago maize market still made limited gains.

Maize prices were generally limited by US harvest pressure. As of 26 September, harvest progress was at 18%, above the five-year-average of 15%.

In other maize news, FrenchAgriMer estimated just 2% of French maize was harvested at 27 September. This was an advancement of 1% on the week, but way behind the same time last year (31%).

Brazilian first maize crop production has been revised up to 30.1Mt from 29.8Mt (StoneX), while other associations such as Abramilho are pegging estimates at 32.0Mt. Brazil is currently planting its full-season (smaller) maize crop.