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Old crop sales capture marketing-year best after Asia buys huge volume.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

April 9, 2020

2 Min Read
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Fotosearch/Thinkstock

USDA’s latest weekly export report showed another round of lackluster soybean and wheat sales for the week ending April 2, but the news wasn’t all bearish. Corn sales spiked 41% above the prior four-week average to notch a new marketing-year high. Grain prices all trended moderately higher immediately following the report’s release this morning.

Corn exports climbed 72% above last week’s tally to reach 72.8 million bushels in old crop sales plus another 4.6 million bushels in new crop sales. Analysts were expecting a big haul, but today’s numbers beat out all estimates, which ranged between 47.2 million and 74.8 million bushels in total sales. A trio of Asian destinations – Japan (27.7 million), China (24.0 million) and South Korea (13.1 million) – led the way last week.

Corn export shipments were also a marketing-year high last week, with 50.8 million bushels. Japan (14.9 million) and Mexico (12.4 million) were the top two destinations, with South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan rounding out the top five.

Soybean export sales were relatively muted, sliding 45% lower week-over-week and down 25% from the prior four-week average, with 19.2 million bushels in old crop sales plus another 13.0 million bushels in new crop sales. The total was still in the middle of trade guesses, which ranged between 25.7 million and 51.4 million bushels. Mexico was the No. 1 buyer, with 14.2 million bushels, followed by China’s 7.7 million bushels.

Related:Weekly Export Sales – Wheat tumbles to marketing-year low

Soybean export shipments found a new marketing-year low, falling to 13.3 million bushels. Egypt was the No. 1 destination, with 4.0 million bushels. Mexico, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia filled out the top five.

Wheat sales rebounded from a marketing-year low after finding 9.5 million bushels in old crop sales and 4.3 million bushels in new crop sales, but that was still 36% below the prior four-week average. Analysts were expecting the total to fall anywhere between 7.3 million and 20.5 million bushels. Taiwan was the top buyer, with 3.6 million bushels.

Wheat export shipments fared better last week, climbing 39% above the prior week’s tally and 1% above the prior four-week average to reach 14.0 million bushels. Nigeria was the No. 1 destination, with 2.8 million bushels, followed by Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Guatemala.

Click here for last week’s entire export sales 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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