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Old crop corn and soybean sales start to fade; new crop sales pick up

Ben Potter, Senior editor

June 17, 2021

2 Min Read

The 2021/22 marketing year has already begun for the wheat crop (as of June 1), and there are only a handful of weeks left in the 2020/21 season for corn and soybeans. As such, a shift from old crop sales to new crop sales is slowly unfolding, as evidenced by some data from the latest USDA export sales report, out Thursday morning and covering the week through June 10.

Old crop corn sales tumbled 95% below the prior four-week average, to less than 709,000 bushels. New crop sales fared better but were still disappointing overall, with 10.9 million bushels. That was toward the lower end of trade estimates, which came in as high as 35.4 million bushels ahead of today’s report. Cumulative sales for the 2020/21 marketing year still far exceed last year’s pace, with 2.148 billion bushels.

Corn export shipments were much more robust, with 65.4 million bushels, but that was still 16% below the prior four-week average. China (24.2 million) and Japan (21.7 million) were the top two destinations. Mexico, Colombia and Morocco rounded out the top five.

Net sales for old crop soybeans were tepid, at 2.4 million bushels, and new crop sales only chipped in another 240,000 bushels, for a total of 2.8 million bushels. That was on the low end of trade guesses, which ranged between zero and 18.4 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the current marketing year are still nearly 800 million bushels ahead of the prior year’s pace, with 2.127 billion bushels.

Related:Record U.S. corn exports brace for volatility

Soybean export shipments tumbled 48% below the prior four-year average to a marketing-year low of 5.4 million bushels. Japan was the No. 1 destination, with 1.5 million bushels. Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia and Colombia filled out the top five.

Another flash sale reported June 17; private exporters reported to USDA the sale of 135,000 metric tons of soymeal for delivery to the Philippines during the 2020/21 marketing year, which began October 1.

Wheat export sales reached 10.5 million bushels in the crop’s first full week of the 2021/22 marketing year. That was toward the lower end of trade estimates, which ranged between 7.3 million and 18.4 million bushels. Cumulative totals in the new marketing year have started off a bit slowly, with 16.0 million bushels (versus 24.2 million bushels across the first 10 days of 2020/21).

Wheat export shipments were just under 11.0 million bushels. Nigeria was the No. 1 destination, with 2.8 million bushels. Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan and Nicaragua filled out the top five.

Click here for more highlights and insights from the latest USDA report, which covers June 4 through June 10.

Related:Export Sales: Soybean shipments spill to marketing-year low

 

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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