Soybean ending stocks fell to 395 million bushels
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) June World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report featured positive news for soybean producers.
“Soybean ending stocks fell below the psychological level of 400 million bushels to 395 million bushels,” said Abhinesh Gopal, head of commodity research at Farms.com Risk Management. “That’s down from 405 million bushels in the May report.”
The 400-million-bushel number has been used as a baseline over recent years.
“We’ve been seeing big U.S. soybean ending stocks of over 400 million bushels over the last few crop years,” Gopal said. “From 2007 to 2016, the final U.S. soybean ending stocks have been lower than even 300 million bushels.”
Exports didn’t play a large part in the June soybean figures.
“Soy numbers didn’t see any change in export expectations for 2020-21 compared to last month,” Gopal said. “But crush was raised, which made the difference for ending stocks, despite a bigger beginning stocks figure.”
Corn ending stocks for the year are also slightly lower despite being higher than the May figures.
This came, in part, as a result of resurveying some states about unharvested acres and reduction demand, Gopal said.
“We saw a 10 percent reduction in North Dakota’s 2019-20 corn crop, and that year’s corn production estimate was reduced by 46 million bushels to 13.6 billion bushels,” he said. “Also, the corn yield was reduced to 167.4 bushels per acre from 167.8 bushels per acre.”
On the demand side, corn experienced a reduction of about 50 million bushels in 2019-20 corn used for ethanol.
Wheat prices dipped yesterday after the report based on large U.S. and global numbers.
“Prices reacted by dropping for all three kinds of wheat contracts,” Gopal said. Today, though, they are higher. Prices will react to multiple factors like USDA numbers, weather forecasts and trade news.”