The Morning Vibe

03/04/12 -- The overnight market sees corn and beans slightly lower in light consolidation. Wheat is down 5-7 cents, crude oil is around half a dollar lower.

Copa Cogenca came out with some crop numbers on Friday I see that got overlooked in all the excitement caused by the USDA.

They said that the 2012/13 EU-27 wheat crop would come in at 137.2 MMT, 0.2 MMT down on last year. Barley production will be 53.9 MMT, an increase of 2.2 MMT and corn production will be down 1.2 MMT to 65.1 MMT, they say.

Their wheat number is higher than Coceral's estimate of 134.6 MMT, the barley estimate is just about bang on the same whilst the corn figure is more than 3 MMT up on Coceral.

Copa Cogenca have UK wheat production at 16.3 MMT, up 6% on last year. Barley output is seen 3.5% higher at 5.84 MMT.

They also estimate EU-27 rapeseed production down 1 MMT this year at 18.3 MMT. They have the UK crop yielding 3.3 MT/ha, from last year's record 3.9 MT/ha, giving us an output of 2.5 MMT - almost 11% down on 2011.

That little snapshot of UK and EU production forecasts appears to mirror what is going on elsewhere around the world. Generally speaking we are looking at wheat and corn production prospects holding steady/increasing with oilseed potential decreasing.

This re-enforces my belief that we will see soybeans and rapeseed remain strong relative to corn and wheat as we progress through 2012.