Checking with some of the broker friends in the peanut industry, what’s happening right now in the peanut market? According to most, the market continues to be extremely quiet on all fronts.
The seemingly slowdown in demand seems to be affecting all parts of the world, which is, to be honest, doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. One broker said peanuts are one of the cheapest sources of protein in the market, and peanuts are the cheapest nut, even though they’re not a nut. Really makes one wonder what is really happening to our beloved peanut.
The U.S. current crop market continues to be at a standstill, with sellers needing to sell, and buyers, well, they need to buy, but they think they’re well covered, and the price might go down if they’ll wait. So they’re waiting to see what’s going to happen in the new crop. The new crop will start up about April 15th, but nobody’s offering any contracts, and the market stays quiet.
Argentina’s received some beneficial rains, our major competition in the world, but overall their crop is looking good, and a good potential for the crop will mean they’ll be competing with us in the European Union on export. Another one competing with the U.S. is the Brazilian new crop, continues to perform extremely well, with near perfect growing conditions, so now we’ve got to fight Argentina and Brazil to try to get the peanut market back going into Europe.
Audio Reporting by Tyron Spearman for Southeast AgNet.