The Agriculture Department raised its ending stocks estimate for U.S. soybeans amid crush reductions, while lowering the forecast slightly for wheat and keeping it steady for corn.
The monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report released Wednesday projects soybean ending stocks for the 2024-25 marketing year of 455 million bushels, up 10 million bushels from last month's estimate.
Ending stocks for wheat, meanwhile, were estimated to drop from 766 million bushels to 758 million bushels, while corn ending stocks were projected to remain steady at 2.1 billion bushels, which would be the largest since 2018-19.
The agency maintained its projected average farm price for soybeans at $11.20 per bushel, while upping its expectation for wheat from $6 to $6.50 a bushel. The agency expects the average farm price for corn to remain at $4.40.
The agency also significantly raised the forecast for U.S. wheat exports from 25 million bushels to 800 million, "as U.S. wheat prices are expected to be increasingly competitive with reduced exportable Black Sea supplies.”
The WASDE lowered its forecast for Russian wheat production from 88 million tons to 83 million, all in winter wheat, saying that "hot and dry weather lowered yield prospects following May frosts."
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"The global wheat outlook for 2024-25 is for smaller supplies, consumption, trade, and ending stocks," USDA said, projecting a decrease in supplies of 5.7 million tons to 1.05 billion.
"Significant reductions" in production for Russia, Ukraine, and the EU will only be partly offset by larger global beginning stocks, the report said.
The estimate for Brazil's soybean stocks was lowered by just 1 million tons, to 153 million, based on a reassessment of the damage caused by flooding in Rio Grande do Sul by Brazil’s state agency Emater.
The agency lowered its prediction for ending rice stocks, from 45.5 million hundredweight to 44.5 million hundredweight. It also lowered its expectations for ending stocks of sugar from 1.464 million short tons to 1.445 million short tons, though it upped its predictions of cotton ending stocks from 3.7 million 480-pound bales to 4.1 million.
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