As of Tuesday afternoon, more than a million people are under mandatory evacuation orders in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina as Hurricane Florence draws closer to the coast. Meteorologists are predicting that the Carolina coasts will start seeing tropical storm-force winds late Wednesday night, with hurricane-force winds arriving at around noon on Thursday and official landfall likely on Thursday night. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency on Friday. 

After showing solid recovery from drought in the previous and current marketing seasons with above-average maize and soya bean production, the debate on climate-related challenges could resurface as the opening of the summer crop-planting window approaches in the next two to three weeks.

Last night, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) revised its estimate for South Africa’s 2018/19 maize production down by 4 percent from last month to 13.0 million tonnes. While this is 6 percent lower than the 2017/18 production season, it is still above the long-term average production of about 12.5 million tonnes.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that China would now allow soybean imports from Ethiopia in an effort to ease reliance on the United States. But, what I am not convinced of is the part of “…effort to ease reliance on the United States.”