Prospects for wheat and corn crops brightened in the past month, chiefly in the United States and the former Soviet Union, so the world is headed for “an all-time peak” grain crop of 2.069 billion tonnes, forecast the International Grains Council, based in London. The forecast is a sharp 3 percent larger than in July and portends the largest grain glut on record.
“Ample availabilities and low prices are seen encouraging feed demand,” said IGC’s monthly Grain Market Report. “Despite this, the (carry-over) stocks number is raised by 4 million tonnes from before, to a new high of 492 million tonnes.” The stock-to-use ratio, a gauge of the adequacy of supplies, would be an ample 24 percent at the end of the 2016/17 marketing year, the highest in 15 years. China would hold 40 percent of the stocks.
Wheat production was forecast for a record 743 million tonnes, corn at a record 1.03 billion tonnes, rice at a record 482 million tonnes, and soybeans at a record 325 million tonnes, also up 3 percent from last year. “Although the wheat harvest will likely be a new peak, the past month has seen escalating concerns about availabilities of milling grades,” said the IGC.
Crop scouts on the Pro Farmer tour of the Midwest said the U.S. corn crop, while record-large, would be smaller than USDA’s forecast of 15.153 billion bushels, and the soybean crop also would be smaller than the USDA estimate of 4.060 billion bushels, but still a record, said Ohio Ag Net. After checking hundreds of fields in seven states from Ohio to Nebraska, the tour estimated a corn crop of 14.728 billion bushels and a soybean harvest of 4.093 billion bushels. The records are 14.216 billion bushels of corn in 2014 and 3.929 billion bushels in 2015.