A rainy spring that delayed planting in the western Corn Belt will mean a smaller-than-expected soybean crop, traders said ahead of today’s Crop Production report, which makes the first forecast of the fall harvest. In a Reuters survey, traders uniformly said they expect less soybeans to be harvested than farmers planned earlier this year. On average, traders said the soybean harvest would be 3.724 billion bushels, or 4 percent less than USDA projected a month ago on the assumption of normal weather and yields.
Soybean planting proceeded so slowly this spring that USDA ran a special survey of growers in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas during July to get a better picture of the situation. In early July, when the planting season usually is over, growers in Missouri had sown only 73 percent of their intended 5.75 million acres of soybeans, leaving around 1.5 million acres to go. Missouri is the sixth-largest soybean state, growing about 6 percent of the U.S. crop. Kansas and Arkansas combined grow nearly 8 percent of U.S. soybeans. USDA says it will update its forecast of soybean plantings and harvest area today if justified by the special survey.
U.S. soybean supplies will be ample even if there is a modest downturn in crop prospects. The crop still would be the second-largest ever and follow on the heels of the record-setting 2014 crop of 3.969 billion bushels. Soybeans are used widely as an ingredient in processed foods, from salad dressing to baked goods, as a component in livestock rations and as a feedstock for making biofuels and other industrial products.
The August crop report often is called the most important crop report of the year because it is the first forecast of the fall harvest and the first based on spot checks of thousands of fields and interviews of 25,000 growers across the country. Traders expect USDA to forecast a corn crop of 13.2 billion bushels, the third-largest crop ever. Farmers set back-to-back records for corn in 2013 and 2014.