Porto Alegre, October 5, 2021 – The US Department of Agriculture’s quarterly stocks report, released on September 30, surprised the market and brought important negative impacts to Chicago. What was supposed to be just a report confirming carryover stocks ended up bringing a number much higher than expected by the market, knocking down CBOT futures contracts. The big point is that USDA, besides estimating stocks, made a totally unusual adjustment in the US production for the 2020/21 crop, which usually only occurs in its monthly supply and demand reports.
According to USDA, quarterly stocks totaled 256 million bushels (6.97 million tons) through September 1. Stored volume decreased 51% from the same period in 2020 but was far above the market’s expectation of 172 million bushels (4.68 million tons). Out of the total, 68.1 million bushels are held by growers, down 52%. Off-farm stocks total 188 million bushels, down 51%.
The US soybean crop in 2020 was revised upwards by USDA. Production is now up 80.8 million bushels from the previous forecast. In tons, production is now estimated at 114.75 million tons, against 112.54 million tons estimated in recent months.
Planted area was revised to 83.4 million acres. Reaped area is projected at 82.6 million acres. Average yield is now estimated at 51 bushels per acre, up 0.8 bushels.
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