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Cargill leader optimistic about soybean markets
A Cargill official is optimistic about soybean prices as recovery from COVID-19 continues. Joe Stone is Cargill’s Vice President of the agricultural supply chain. He says, “When things begin to ramp up, at least we see at Cargill a lot of pent-up demand. You know, a lot of us do want to get back on the plane. A lot of us do want to go out to eat at restaurants, and I think it’s likely that we see a bit more inflation than we’ve seen in quite a while.”
Stone says there are reasons to be optimistic because of demand-driven soybean markets, which tend to last longer than supply-driven markets… and right now, both are strong. “The dry weather that we’re having in Argentina, maybe we’ve taken the topside off of some of the crops in Brazil. We’re really getting now a bit of both. We’ve got some supply-driven concerns and we had the demand-driven market which has really provided plenty of jet fuel, really almost parabolic over the last 45 days to these prices.”
Stone says there appears to be more rationing of demand now, which hasn’t been seen in nearly eight years. “We are going to need to ration, and really the extent of how much we’re going to have to ration is probably going to be a function of the weather that we see in Argentina.”
Stone says soybeans have gone from surpluses in June and July to demand rationing, seeing a whole cycle in one year.
Soybean prices gained overnight before Wednesday’s trading session as Argentina’s weather continues to cause concern.
Stone made his comments during the U.S. Soybean Export Council’s Soy Suite webinar Wednesday.
