The Agriculture Department on Thursday raised its yield estimates for corn and soybeans and predicted increased production for both commodities in its November crop report.
The average corn yield has been raised to 174.9 bushels per acre – up from the October estimate of 173 bushels, according to the latest edition of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report. And the average soybean yield is now seen at 49.9 bushels per acre, up from 49.6 bushels.
That translates into stronger production. The USDA is now predicting 15.234 billion bushels of corn will be produced for the 2023-24 marketing year. USDA also bumped up its predictions for feed and residual use as well as exports, but that didn’t offset the higher production.
“With supply rising more than use, corn ending stocks are up 45 million bushels to 2.2 billion,” USDA said in the WASDE report. “The season-average corn price received by producers is lowered 10 cents to $4.85 per bushel.”
USDA raised its soybean production forecast to 4.129 billion bushels. But, unlike corn, USDA did not boost its export forecast.
“The largest production changes are for Wisconsin, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Ohio,” USDA said about its soybean production forecast. “With crush and exports unchanged, soybean ending stocks are raised to 245 million bushels.”
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While USDA did not raise its forecast for soybean exports – it remains at 1.755 billion bushels – the Foreign Agricultural Service is reporting some heavy trade with China.
FAS published a daily sale announcement Thursday, reporting export sales contracts of 1.044 million metric tons to Chinese buyers as well as 662,500 tons to “unknown destinations” – which could well turn out also to be going to China.
FAS, in a separate Wednesday release, announced sales of 443,000 tons of U.S. soybeans to China.
The USDA agency also released its latest weekly trade data for Oct. 27-Nov. 2, showing total export sales of about 1 million tons, with most of that (692,400 tons) going to Chinese buyers. As for exports, the U.S. shipped out about 2.2 million tons, 1.6 million of which went to China.
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