The soybean stockpile was a bare-bones 92 million bushels at the start of this month, less than a week-and-a-half supply with the new crop still reaching maturity, said the quarterly Grain Stocks report. It was the smallest soybean carry-over since 69 million bushels in 1973 when the farm sector was booming, say USDA records. USDA also revised its estimate of last year’s soybean crop to 3.357 billion bushels, 2 percent larger than thought. With the revision, the 2013 crop is the second-largest since USDA began tracking the oilseed in 1942/43.
A record soybean crop crop of 3.913 billion bushels is forecast this fall, topping the 2009 mark of 3.359 billion bushels. The mammoth crop would end a three-year string of ever-smaller carryover supplies and deflate the market price. USDA said the corn carryover on Sept 1 was 1.24 billion bushels, 50 percent larger than a year ago thanks to a record crop. The annual Small Grains report pegged the wheat crop at 2.036 billion bushels, up marginally from the previous estimate, including 1.328 billion bushels of winter wheat.
USDA said it would re-survey growers in eight states, mainly in the Plains, who had not completed harvest of barley, oats, durum wheat or spring wheat when it compiled the Small Grains report. USDA will update its estimates for the crops on Nov 10 if warranted by the new survey. The states involved are Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.