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Old crop wheat sales at marketing-year low; corn and soybeans also disappoint.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

May 6, 2021

2 Min Read
DarcyMaulsby/Thinkstock

Grain exports have been robust overall throughout much of the 2020/21 marketing year, but USDA’s latest batch of sales data, covering the week through April 29, didn’t have a lot of helpful data for traders to digest. Old crop corn sales plummeted 74% below the prior week’s tally, with old crop soybean sales down 44% week-over-week. Old crop wheat sales fared the worst, with enough net reductions to push totals to a marketing-year low.

Old crop corn sales slumped 72% below the prior four-week average, to 5.4 million bushels. New crop sales only contributed another 4.2 million bushels, for a tepid total of 9.6 million bushels. That was below the entire range of trade guesses, which came in between 11.8 million and 59.1 million bushels. However, cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year still have a huge lead over last year’s pace, reaching 1.713 billion bushels.

Corn export shipments were more robust, climbing 19% above the prior four-week average to 86.4 million bushels. China was the No. 1 destination, with 27.5 million bushels. Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Colombia rounded out the top five.

Sorghum export sales saw a total of less than 7,900 bushels last week, with another 2.2 million bushels in new crop sales. All of that grain is headed to China. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are still far ahead of last year’s pace, with 217.5 million bushels.

Soybean export sales saw old crop sales tumble 86% below the prior four-week average, to 6.1 million bushels. New crop sales added 7.1 million bushels, for a total of 13.2 million bushels. This was in the middle of trade guesses, which were as low as net zero and as high as 29.4 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are still more than 800 million bushels ahead of last year’s pace, with 2.070 billion bushels so far.

Soybean export shipments were down 22% week-over-week and 20% below the prior four-week average, with 9.7 million bushels. Mexico accounted for more than a third of that total, with 3.5 million bushels. Other top destinations included Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Costa Rica.

Old crop wheat export sales fell to a marketing-year low last week, with net reductions of 3.5 million bushels. New crop sales fared much better, with 14.7 million bushels, leaving a balance of 11.2 million bushels. That was in line with analyst expectations, who offered trade guesses ranging between 3.7 million and 27.6 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year remain slightly ahead of last year’s pace, with 826.1 million bushels.

Wheat export shipments showed signs of life, staying 6% above the prior four-week average with 21.5 million bushels. China was the No. 1 destination, with 7.3 million bushels. Mexico, Japan, South Korea and Canada rounded out the top five.

Click here for more highlights and insights from the latest USDA export report, which covers April 23 through April 29.

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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