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Corn and wheat volume spill lower week-over-week in USDA’s latest tally.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

March 19, 2020

3 Min Read
Soybean pouring from combine into waiting truck.
fotokostic/ThinkstockPhotos

USDA offered another mixed bag of results in its latest weekly export sales report, out Thursday morning. Corn volume led the way again but fell 39% from a week ago. Wheat sales were also down week-over-week, while soybean sales firmed 41%.

Soybean sales reached 23.2 million bushels in old crop sales plus another 2.6 million bushels in new crop sales for the week ending March 12, which was a noticeable improvement over the prior week’s tally of 11.1 million bushels but still on the low end of trade estimates, which ranged between 16.9 million and 40.4 million bushels. Unknown destinations accounted for about a third of that total, with 7.8 million bushels. Cumulative sales for the 2019/20 marketing year continue to slightly best last year’s pace, with 1.127 billion bushels.

Soybean export shipments of 17.8 million bushels fell 15% below the prior weeks’ tally and 31% below the prior four-week average. Egypt accounted for the most volume, taking 6.3 million bushels. Mexico, the Netherlands, Japan and Thailand rounded out the top five.

China was absent among the leaders in both soybean export sales and export shipments last week. However, the country did appear on the balance sheet for sorghum sales, buying nearly 8.0 million bushels last week and helping to spike total sales 77% higher than the prior four-week average. China also led the way in sorghum export shipments last week, with 2.8 million bushels.

Corn export sales again topped all grain sales last week, with another 35.6 million bushels in old crop sales and 2.2 million bushels in new crop sales. That was a 39% decline from a week ago, however, and drifted 17% below the prior four-week average. The tally still stayed in the range of trade estimates of 25.6 million and 53.1 million bushels. Cumulative totals in 2019/20 are now at 637.8 million bushels and increasingly unlikely to catch last year’s pace of 1.095 billion bushels.

Corn export shipments reached a marketing-year high of 38.2 million bushels, cresting 16% above the prior four-week average. Mexico accounted for nearly a third of the total, with 11.4 million bushels. Japan, Colombia, South Korea and Guatemala filled out the top five.

Wheat export sales struggled to match the pace of recent weeks, falling to 12.8 million bushels in old crop sales and 5.3 million bushels. Totals were still in the middle of trade estimates that ranged between 9.2 million and 25.7 million bushels. Mexico was the top buyer of both old crop and new crop sales last week. For the 2019/20 marketing year, cumulative sales of 701.3 million bushels are maintaining a moderate lead over last year’s pace of 638.4 million bushels.

Wheat export shipments of 13.7 million bushels slid 17% lower week-over-week and 29% below the prior four-week average. Japan (2.1 million) and Nigeria (1.9 million) were the top two destinations. The Philippines, Mexico and Peru filled out the top five.

Click here for last week’s entire export data set from USDA.

About the Author(s)

Ben Potter

Senior editor, Farm Futures

Senior Editor Ben Potter brings two decades of professional agricultural communications and journalism experience to Farm Futures. He began working in the industry in the highly specific world of southern row crop production. Since that time, he has expanded his knowledge to cover a broad range of topics relevant to agriculture, including agronomy, machinery, technology, business, marketing, politics and weather. He has won several writing awards from the American Agricultural Editors Association, most recently on two features about drones and farmers who operate distilleries as a side business. Ben is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

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