Sunflower prices at the crush plants remain unchanged

Nearby prices at the crush plants ended the week unchanged. After more than a year of intense negotiations, the United States, Canada and Mexico reached an agreement to update the North American Free Trade Agreement a week ago. The new deal will be known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Having a USMCA agreement in place is great news for sunflower products as oil, meal, in-shell seed and kernel have duty free access in Canada and Mexico. Canada is the largest export market for U.S. sunflower oil and sunflower kernel. Mexico is the second largest export market for in-shell seed and kernel. The price discovery period has started for crop insurance policies for sunflower and will continue until Oct. 31. Producers should watch the December Chicago Board of Trade soyoil contract as it will allow you to see how prices are tracking. The harvest price per pound for oil-type sunflowers is currently at 15.8 cents and confection sunflowers at 22.0 cents. The spring prices were 17.5 cents for oils and 23.7 cents for confections. On October 11, USDA will issue its first production estimate of the 2018 sunflower crop. This report will be key to prices going forward. The market and buyers are anxious to see where USDA pegs 2018 sunflower production prospects before making longer term purchases. Using a trend yield, initial estimates peg the US sunflower crop at around 875,000 metric tons, which compares to last year’s total of 984,000 metric tons.