USDA Revises Lowers Production Estimates For US Wheat & Soybean; Corn Production Reduced Significantly

The USDA in the monthly report went for a drastic reduction in the corn yield estimates by nearly 5 bushels per acre to 174.6 for corn. As a result the production estimates moved lower by 415 million bushels to 14.75 billion bushels.

Ending stocks for the new crop marketing year were also dropped by 190 million bushels from last month to 1.242 billion bushels. The downward revision of the corn yields comes as a big surprise for most of the US trade participants, considering record yields forecasted for Illinois, Indiana and Ohio versus lower yields in Minnesota and South Dakota. But most view that moving forward there may emerge signs of further reduction in the yields. The USDA also reduced wheat production by 49 million bushels to 1.697 billion bushels, with the reductions being incorporated in hard red winter as well as white wheat.

The all-wheat yield was lowered by 1.3 bushels per acre to 44.5 bushels per acre. U.S. ending stocks were given a cut by 38 million bushels from last month to 627 million bushels. The global balance sheets was also saw changes with world ending stocks for 2021-22 being lowered to 279.1 million metric tons  - a 12.6 million metric ton drop from July. 

Likewise Russia’s wheat production was lowered by 12.5 million metric tons while production in Canada was estimated lower by 7.5 million metric tons to 24 million metric tons.

For soybean, the production cuts were conservative, with yield lowered just 0.8 bushels per acre to 50 bushels per acre. Currently most traders and experts feel that if USDA is already lowering yield on soybeans at this early stage, then the possibility for further cuts may be observed in forthcoming reports.

The U.S. soybean production was lowered by 66 million bushels to 4.34 billion bushels, but new crop ending stocks was unchanged at 155 million bushels. On the other hand the global soybean ending stocks were raised to 96.2 million metric tons.