August WASDE Recap 8/12

Beans are almost a quarter lower as a combination of factors increased carryouts sharply. Corn rose $.05 following the report as of 12:00 Central time, on increasing use overshadowing a 2.1 bu/ac increase in the yield.

SOYBEANS

Soybeans were the big mover with 1 million additional acres and yields rising 1.2 bu/ac, swelling CY24 production 154 million bushels, now 10.2% higher than last year. With exports increasing just 25 million bushels, the carryout jumped 125 million bu to 560 mil bu, 62.3% higher than CY23 and 112% higher than CY22. The average farm gate price for U.S. producers fell $0.30/bu from July to $10.80/bu. No changes to products.

Globally, Argentina’s CY23 production was trimmed .5 MMT to 49 MMT, while Brazil’s was unchanged at 153 MMT. CY23 Carryouts grew 1.11 MMT, as China’s imports were expanded, building their stocks 3.5 MMT, mostly on increasing imports from Brazil.

CY24 Bean production grew sharply though, with 4.2 MMT coming from the US as detailed above, but 2.7 MMT coming from other, undetailed producers. In all CY24 carryout expanded from 127.76 MMT to 134.30, up from 112.36 in CY23 and 100.66 in CY22, a worrying trend.

CORN

Corn saw production area trimmed 800K acres while yield increased 2.1 bu/ac. Alongside a small reduction of 10 mil bu in CY23 Corn, supply expanded 36 million bu. This expansion was more than met with increased exports of 75 million bu, which was partially offset by lower use in Food, Seed & Residual. Carryout declined 24 million bu to 2.073 bil bu, a non-worrying amount for users. The average farm gate price fell $0.10/bu to $4.20.

In the rest of the world, the Global carryout also shrank 1.47 MMT, with half of that the slightly smaller US carryout. EU production slipped 3.5 MMT (5.5%) to 60.5 MMT, but domestic use shrank to limit the losses in a relatively tight annual carryout of 6.88 MMT (just 270 million bushels).

WHEAT

Wheat acres fell 900K acres for CY24, but yield increased .4 bu/ac, dropping supply 26 mil bu. This decline mostly fell to the carryout with 2 million additional bushels for food use. Farm gate prices were unchanged. Ending stocks of HRW increased 12 mil bushels, while HRS fell 24 mil bu, and Durum fell 14 mil bu, (almost 40%) to just 22 mil bu.

Globally, World Wheat ending stocks fell less than 1 MMT to 256.62 MMT, with EU production dropping 2 MMT, and AUS increasing 1 MMT. Ukraine also saw 2.1 MMT higher production in a crop that’s been handicapped lower the entire season on perceived difficulties from the ongoing war that haven’t been borne out.

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