The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is out with its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.
Pre-report, many were questioning to what extent the war in Ukraine, which has driven markets higher over the last two weeks, would be accounted for.
The USDA has made some adjustments — albeit minor — to the global wheat balance sheet, due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
USDA lowered Ukraine’s projected exports by 4 million metric tons to 20 million. Russian wheat exports were reduced 3 million metric tons to 32 million. Despite lower Black Sea exports, world wheat ending stocks were pegged at 281.5 million tons, up from 278.2 million in February.
Looking at domestic wheat supply and demand, the USDA reported unchanged domestic use, reduced exports, and higher ending stocks. The reasoning for higher supply boiled down to imports being reduced by 5 million bushels (all for Hard Red Spring Wheat), while exports are reduced by 10 million bushels.
U.S. corn ending stocks were dropped from 1.54 billion to 1.44 billion bushels, with global ending stocks sitting around 300.97 MMT, down from 1.2 MMT from the previous report in February.
Messing around with USDA’s 2022-23 U.S. #corn balance sheet from its Feb outlooks?
Strictly for demo purposes, I cut 2022 yield so its a record by 1 bu, not 4 bu. I also put in the March 21/22 S&D. With NO other changes, carryout would shed 352 mbu, stocks/use fall from 13.2%. pic.twitter.com/ajzyz1QtS8
— Karen Braun (@kannbwx) March 9, 2022
Scott Irwin, Agriculture Economist at the University of Illinois, provided an interesting conversion of Russia crop production into million bushels for the 2021/2022 crop year.
1. Converting Russian crop production into million bushels for 21/22:
Winter wheat: 1,918
Spring wheat: 845.1
Sunflower seed: 1,146.4
Barley: 803.8
Corn: 598.4Total for 5 crops: 5,311.7
By comparison, Ukraine production for same 5 crops is about 3,700 million bushels https://t.co/v75cGNTFQC
— Scott Irwin (@ScottIrwinUI) March 9, 2022
Soybean ending stocks were lowered, as expected — down 40 million bushels to a total of 285 million bushels. Exports were raised 40 million bushels to 2.09 billion based on lower production and reduced exports from South America.
USDA cuts U.S. #soybean ending stocks to 285 million bushels, down from 325 million last month, but a bit above trade at 278 million. I remain at 182 million bushels, once one accounts for the rest of the losses in South America. #oatt
— Arlan Suderman (@ArlanFF101) March 9, 2022
USDA slashes #Brazil‘s #soybeans to 127 mmt – below the trade guess. #Argentina soy down 1.5 mmt, close to guesses. Brazil #corn unch but Argy down 1 mmt. pic.twitter.com/SncbEQbJu9
— Karen Braun (@kannbwx) March 9, 2022