Farm Progress

Trade analysts offer a range of U.S. and global stock estimates ahead of the Dec. 12 report.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

December 7, 2017

2 Min Read
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USDA’s monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report is one of the agency’s most hotly anticipated and digested reports. Oftentimes, report days lead to a lot of grain market movement, depending on what the latest data reveals.

The next WASDE report is coming up on Dec. 12. To prepare, as many as 27 industry analysts provided estimates on some key production figures ahead of the report’s release. The analysts offered projections on several key U.S. and global stock estimates, as well as analysis on South American grain production.

That includes an average trade guess of 2.478 billion bushels of 2017/18 U.S. corn reserves, with individual estimates ranging between 2.394 billion and 2.519 billion. The November WASDE report pegged reserves at 2.487 billion bushels.

Trade analysts also estimated 440 million bushels of soybean reserves and 939 million bushels of wheat reserves. If realized, that volume would push total U.S. soybean reserves 15 million bushels higher and wheat another 4 million bushels higher, versus November volumes.

For 2017/18 global reserves, the analysts estimate 7.976 billion bushels of corn, 3.593 billion bushels of soybeans and 9.811 billion bushels of wheat. All three figures are slightly below USDA November projections, including 51.2 million bushels lower in corn, 3.7 million bushels lower in soybeans and 40.4 million bushels lower in wheat.

Analysts also estimated 2017/18 South American corn and soybean production. Those projections include corn production of 1.646 billion bushels in Argentina and 3.669 billion bushels in Brazil. The projections also include soybean production of 2.076 billion bushels in Argentina and 3.979 billion bushels in Brazil. All four figures are slightly below November estimates, except for Brazilian soybeans, trending 11 million bushels higher.

Farm Futures is a regular participant in these surveys. The following are estimates via our senior grain market analyst, Bryce Knorr.

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Visit FarmFutures.com on Dec. 12 for comprehensive WASDE coverage and analysis.

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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