The USDA released the May World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates Report this week. The May report always includes the first look at new crop corn and soybean supply and demand tables. Joe Jansen is an agricultural economist from the University of Illinois. Janzen talks about his broad takeaway from the WASDE and the new crop numbers.

“Certainly, the U.S. balance sheet estimates, these first new crop balance sheets that we see for 2025-2026 look fairly bullish on the face. Certainly, with ending stocks numbers below what the trade was expecting, the markets kind of reacted accordingly. We’ve seen a pop in both the corn and bean markets this morning on a basis, I think, of pretty solid expectations for both corn and soybean usage in the coming marketing year.”

The USDA says that corn ending stocks will be just 1.8 billion bushels. The trade is probably closer to a billion this time around. They also have a 2.675-billion-bushel export number. He said that’s a big number.

“This is still a build in corn stocks because we are seeing, you know, high expected planted acreage for this coming marketing year. We had all this corn coming. What are we going to do with it? USDA has said that corn is going to find a home, both in terms of higher feed use, higher export use than in 2024-2025, where exports surprised to the upside, and then solid, stable ethanol use. And all those things put together got us to an ending stocks number in the report that’s well below where the trade was expecting. So, even though we’re building corn stocks in the United States year over year, and still a stocks number that’s higher than we’ve seen in a few years, that’s still a bullish number.”

The USDA says on its season’s average cash price, though, that the prediction it made at the Ag Forum, which was $4.20, when they had 2.124 billion bushel ending stocks, remains the same today with a 1.8-billion-bushel crop. He puts those two things in context…tape

Cut #3        :25        OC…”price forecast.”  

“Maybe a part of that is sort of the global balance sheet, and some strong expectations for global production. And part of it is that a 1.8-billion-bushel carryout is still significant in the context of global corn supply and demand. But I view that number as a pretty wide range, there should be a pretty wide range of confidence around that particular price forecast.”

Again, that’s Joe Janzen of the University of Illinois.