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Volume exceeds trade expectations; corn and wheat fall lower week-over-week.

Ben Potter, Senior editor

January 19, 2021

2 Min Read
oticki/ThinkstockPhotos

USDA’s new batch of grain export inspection data for the week through January 17 held some bullish results for soybeans – but not much else. Soybeans turned in the best performance by jumping modestly ahead of the prior week’s tally and moving ahead of all trade estimates. But corn slumped moderately lower, with wheat down slightly week-over-week.

Soybean export inspections climbed 11.4% higher from a week ago to reach 75.6 million bushels. That was better than all analyst estimates, which ranged between 33.1 million and 68.0 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are nearly doubling last year’s pace, with 1.578 billion bushels.

China accounted for 62% of all U.S. soybean export inspections last week, gathering up another 46.8 million bushels. Egypt, Mexico, Pakistan and Thailand rounded out the top five.

Corn export inspections were much less impressive, fading 33% week-over-week to land at 34.5 million bushels. That was also below all trade estimates, which ranged between 35.4 million and 49.2 million bushels. However, cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are still well ahead of last year’s pace, with 680.1 million bushels.

Mexico was the No. 1 destination for U.S. corn export inspections last week, with 8.8 million bushels. Japan, Colombia, South Korea and China filled out the top five.

Sorghum export inspections moved moderately higher last week, reaching 6.3 million bushels. China took nearly all of that total, with Japan accounting for the very small remainder. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year have nearly tripled last year’s pace so far, with 103.9 million bushels.

Wheat export inspections continue to show mostly lackluster results, sliding slightly lower week-over-week to 10.2 million bushels. That was mostly in the middle of analyst estimates, which ranged between 7.3 million and 14.7 million bushels. Cumulative totals for the 2020/21 marketing year are sliding farther behind last year’s pace, now at 572.1 million bushels.

Indonesia topped all destinations for U.S. wheat export inspections last week, with just under 4.0 million bushels. Mexico, Japan, Colombia and Yemen rounded out the top five.

Click here for more highlights from USDA’s latest grain export inspection report.

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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