Mike Pearson gives listeners an update on the World Agricultural Supply Demand and Exports (WASDE) report released by the USDA last Thursday.

The report didn't have many large surprises but did the market a shake but it recovered and pushed higher into the weekend.

The corn balance sheet showed ethanol and livestock feed use each raised by 25 million bushels bringing the carryout down by 2 billion bushels-- a little higher than analyst expectations.

Globally, the USDA made very few changes. The Argentine crop is shrinking by one million metric tons and South Africa by 1.5 million metric tons.

No change was made to Brazil's expected production.

Though many other analysts have reduced their own.

In soybean ending stocks, they climbed to 340 million bushels. The climb was expected in seed, residual demand and exports.

Soy crush which has ben running at a record pace was left unchanged by the USDA, raising the eyebrows of some traders.

Globally, the USDA surprised the trade by leaving the Brazilian soy figures unchanged at 155 million metric tons that's nearly 9 million metric tons higher than Brazilian government's own estimate.

Wheat producers saw little news to change the direction of their market. With feed and residual demand declining by 30 million bushels ending stocks were raised slightly to 698 million bushels.

The USDA also made few changes to the global balance sheet. The bright spot is that global wheat ending stocks of 258.6 million metric tons would be lowest since 2015 as the world chews through the wheat sock pile.

The report was also supportive of the protein market-- both beef and pork. Both of them are expected to rise in 2024 and prices are looking stronger.

The April WASDE report held very few surprises but many analysts and farmers are glad it's out of the way and they can now focus on reports from the field, the harvest update for South America and crop conditions reports from across the country.

Farm Progress America is a daily look at key issues in agriculture. It is produced and presented by Mike Pearson, farm broadcaster and host of This Week in Agribusiness.