Glacier FarmMedia – There will likely not be a lot of notable changes in the March supply and demand report from the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA is scheduled to release its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates on Mar. 8 at 11 am CST.
Ryan Ettner, broker with Allendale Inc. in McHenry, Ill. said the most important numbers to watch are the carryouts for 2023/24. Ahead of the report, market expectations called for very little changes in those ending stocks from the February report.
Back then, the USDA placed the U.S. soybean carryout at 315 million bushels with the average trade guess for March at about 319 million, according to reports. The carryover for corn is to dip from 2.17 billion bushels to slightly below 2.16 billion. That for wheat is to remain at or near last month’s estimate 658 million bushels.
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“If there are going to be changes the single most likely category would be exports,” stated Ettner, noting that would explain the slight reduction for corn ending stocks.
“I don’t think the USDA will lower exports for beans, but that’s why the increase,” he added about that commodity’s carryover.
Ettner said the USDA previously indicated in their January and February estimates that while soybean exports were good, that they could turn sour. In those reports the department pegged 2023/24 soybean exports at 725 million bushels.
“The numbers they gave us didn’t seem to make any sense, because exports at the time were faster than what they gave us,” he commented. “Now since the February report those bean exports have fallen off. It’s only two weeks of data, but the last two weeks have been very poor.”
Those export sales reports listed soybeans at marketing year low of 55,900 tonnes for the week ended Feb. 15 and then 159,700 tonnes the following week.
As for the effect the March WASDE is likely to have on the Chicago Board of Trade, Ettner said very little.
“The one they are going to care about is the acreage report on Mar. 28. We don’t expect major changes in acreage, but it will have a much larger effect than the [supply and demand] report,” he commented.
