The mammoth corn and soybean crops awaiting harvest across America are larger than expected, the government said on Wednesday. In its monthly Crop Production report, the USDA said the corn and soybean crops are 2 percent larger than estimated a month ago, thanks to record-setting yields per acre.
Growers will reap a record 4.693 billion bushels of soybeans, the third year in a row the United States, the world’s largest soybean producer, will top 4 billion bushels, said the USDA. Corn farmers will harvest 14.827 billion bushels, the second-largest crop ever. The soybean “carryover” would more than double by next Aug. 31 and would be the largest ever, said the USDA is its WASDE report. The corn carryover would rise by 5 percent, a sharp change from the USDA forecast a month ago that it would drop by 16 percent in the year ahead.
This year’s corn crop will sell for an average of $3.50 a bushel and soybeans for an average of $8.60 a bushel. If the USDA forecast is correct, this will be the fifth straight year that corn will sell for less than $4 a bushel, and soybeans will fetch the lowest average price in 12 years.
The trade war with China and other U.S. trading partners is compounding the effect of a string of large U.S. crops. The USDA lowered its forecast of soybean imports by China during the current marketing year to 94 million tonnes, down by 1 million tonnes from the previous estimate, due to “slower growth in protein meal demand.” Before China and the United States levied tit-for-tat tariffs on each other earlier this year, USDA analysts said China would buy 103 million tonnes of soybeans in 2018/19.