Farm Progress

Soybean bounces back from last week, while wheat sales sputter.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

March 1, 2018

2 Min Read
Bow view of fully loaded cargo ship.Stewart Sutton/ThinkstockPhotos

Corn’s export sales momentum has promised to hang around for at least one more week, beating out trade estimates and coming in higher than a week ago. Soybean sales rebounded from disastrous results a week ago, meantime, while wheat exports came in under expectations. 

For the week ending February 22, corn export sales reached 69.0 million bushels in old crop sales, which bested the prior week’s total of 61.2 million bushels and also came in moderately higher than trade estimates of 49.2 million bushels. At this point, the weekly rate needed to reach USDA forecasts is now at 18.6 million bushels.

Corn export shipments landed at 50.2 million bushels. That represents a marketing year high for 2017/18 – 50% higher than last week and 37% above the four-week average. Last week’s top destination was to Mexico, with 9.6 million bushels. Other top destinations included Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Colombia.

Soybean export sales rebounded from a marketing-year low a week ago (-4.0 million bushels), coming in with 31.5 million bushels of old crop sales and another 4.5 million bushels of new crop sales. That was moderately above trade estimates of 22.1 million bushels and bested the weekly rate needed to reach USDA’s forecast, now at 15.8 million bushels. 

Soybean export shipments of 33.1 million bushels were up just 1% from the week prior and 26% below the four-week average. China was the usual No. 1 destination, with 19.8 million bushels for the week ending February 22. Other top destinations included Egypt, South Korea, Japan and Mexico.

Wheat exports of 7.0 million bushels in old crop sales and 1.7 million bushels in new crop sales dipped 42% below the prior week’s total of 12.1 million bushels and sank below average trade estimates of 14.7 million bushels. Totals for the week ending February 22 also came in below the weekly rate needed to reach USDA forecasts, now at 11.4 million bushels.

Wheat export shipments of 12.2 million bushels fell 21% below last week and 30% below the four-week average. Last week’s top destination was Iraq, with 1.8 million bushels, followed by Malaysia, Guatemala, Mexico and Yemen. 

Sorghum export sales were down 82% from a week ago and 73% lower than the prior four-week average. China was the only destination. 

Cotton net sales of 294,100 bales dipped 26% below the prior week’s total as well as 20% below the prior four-week average.

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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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