Corn: Corn has been trading sideways this week. However, corn prices are still above the recent lows that we saw take place at the end of March. Better corn sales has contributed to the increase in corn prices. According to the today’s USDA export report, net sales of 2.2 million metric tons established a marketing year high for 2015/2016. This is an increase of 80% over the previous week. Actual exports were a tad lower than last week’s levels.

Planting is advancing rapidly across the U.S. According to the April 25, 2016 Crop Progress 30% of the U.S. corn crop is planted. This is almost double the planting progress that we saw at the end of April of 2015. Continue reading →

Supply and Demand Estimates and Profitability Outlook

This link to Supply & Demand Estimates & Profitability Outlook contains a  summary of the USDA’s monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report. Domestic balance sheets for corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat are displayed along with price reaction in futures markets for each commodity on the day of the report release. Additionally, supply and demand estimates for key importing and exporting countries are provided for the current month along with change in estimates from the previous report. The Profitability Outlook section contains estimated returns per acre for each commodity based  on 2015 Tennessee state average/trend yields and current price offerings (note: cotton prices include a seed and hauling rebate). Variable expenses are based on the University of Tennessee Extension 2016 Row Crop Budgets. Prices are updated monthly; expenses are updated as warranted during the year and may be different than the expenses contained in the 2016 Row Crop Budgets. This section provides an estimation of the current relative profitability amongst major row crops in Tennessee.

The report is prepared monthly by Dr. Aaron Smith and Chuck Danehower.

A Summary of the March 31 USDA’s Prospective Plantings and Grain Stocks Report including a Profitability Update has been posted at UT Extension Summary of USDA’s Reports.

Corn: The USDA released the acreage report at 11:00 AM today. This report caught the market off guard with a much larger than anticipated corn crop for 2016. In fact, the average trade estimate for the 2016 corn crop was 89.97 million acres. This was based primarily on the USDA’s Outlook Forum projection of 90.00 million acres of corn that was released back in February. Today’s report estimated that 93.60 million acres of corn will be planted in 2016. That is a significant increase over 2015’s levels and will be detrimental to U.S. corn prices. The increase stands to reason what many producers have been stating that they plan to do in 2016. Continue reading →

Corn: The USDA is to release their planting intentions report next week. On Thursday, Farm Futures released their survey of farmer’s planting intentions for 2016. Their survey indicated that farmers intend to plant 90 million acres of corn, which is a 2.3% increase from last year. The abundance of grain supplies is keeping a lid on U.S. corn prices. Argentina’s government has projected that their corn crop to be approximately 37 million metric tons. This is larger than USDA’s projection of 27 million metric tons for Argentina’s crop.  Over the past week, September corn futures increased by $0.01 while the average local harvest basis equaled -$0.17. Continue reading →