Prices of maize rose slightly across spot markets as arrivals fell marginally and demand from poultry feed and starch manufacturers was largely steady.

Demand from poultry feed manufacturers is likely to rise going ahead as they are stocking up the grain in bulk as smaller crop in the kharif season is expected.

Market participants see maize output in the kharif season at 16.1 mln tn, lower than the government’s estimate of 19.9 mln tn.

Corn movements were limited on Thursday, prices were fractionally higher at midday, but came back down to finish the session fractionally in the red.

Export sales for the week of 12/12 were 1.709 MMT, which was up 95.7% from last week and the largest weekly sale since the same week in 2018. There was also 536,121 MT of sales for the 20/21 MY, most of which was reported via the daily reporting system.

For the same week, there were 28.348 mbu of shipments, which was 35.5% above last week’s shipments, but 26.2% behind the same week last year. accumulated shipments were at 7.596 MT (299 mbu).

Accumulated corn exports have grown on average 11.77% wk/wk, relative to last year when the average accumulated export growth rate was 8.85%. USDA also showed 72,600 MT of shipments and sales of sorghum to China during the week of 12/12.