soybeans

Transportation consultant Walter Kemmsies is skeptical the barge industry will be able to move the huge corn and soybean crops being harvested this fall, said Farm Futures, based on an interview at a grain industry meeting in New Orleans.

At least one soybean exporter in Brazil has agreed to collect royalties for Monsanto, the giant seed company, from growers who plant biotech seeds that contain Monsanto's traits, said Reuters, citing industry sources.

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.

A Chinese trade delegation signed 21 purchase agreements with U.S. exporters for 4.8 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans worth $2.3 billion, said the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Reuters said the agreements were announced at the end of a week-long tour. The agreements equal 4.5 percent of this year's crop. China is the world's largest soybean importer and buys two-thirds of global exports. USDA estimates Chinese imports at 74 million tonnes in 2014/15.

Private consultants expect the U.S. corn and soybean crops will be larger than estimated by the government. USDA will update its forecasts on Sept 11. Three consultancies - INTL FCStone, Lanworth and Allendale - release assessments this week. Lanworth was the only one to lower its estimate of the corn crop, to 14.646 billion bushels, but that is higher than the other two forecasts and 4 percent larger than USDA's estimate of 14.032 billion bushels based on Aug 1 conditions, said AgriMoney.

Heading into the final weeks of the growing season, U.S. corn and soybeans were in extraordinary condition, said USDA. Its weekly Crop Progress report said 74 percent of corn was in good or excellent condition, up 1 point from the previous week, and 72 percent of soybeans were good or excellent, up 2 points. Eight percent of corn was mature, half the usual figure for the final days of August. U.S. corn and soybean harvests are forecast to set records this fall.

It's sorghum, one of the major grain crops of the world yet eclipsed in the United States by the expanding range of corn and soybeans. In Africa and parts of Asia, sorghum is a food crop but in the U.S. market, it is primarily used in livestock rations and as an ethanol feedstock, says the Whole Grains Council. It's gaining some recognition as a gluten-free grain that can substitute for wheat flour in many recipes - muffins, pizza, cakes and casseroles are examples.

U.S. farm exports are headed for a record $152.5 billion in the fiscal year ending on Sept 30, says the Agriculture Department.

U.S. farmers will harvest their biggest corn and soybean crops ever - 14.093 billion bushels of corn and 3.812 billion bushels of soybeans, says Pro Farmer after a first-hand look at crops in the seven leading states.

Analysts are chewing over the arcane Crop Acreage Data page posted by USDA in hopes of a clearer picture of this fall's corn and soybean harvests.

Traders expect USDA to forecast record crops today - 14.25 billion bushels of corn and 3.82 billion bushels of soybeans - in its first estimate of the fall harvest only a few weeks away.

Economist Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University says crop subsidies of $30-$90 an acre are possible with record crops and farm-gate prices that average $3.60 a bushel, reports DTN.

U.S. farmers are headed for record-breaking harvests this fall, so large that corn and soybean surpluses will be the largest in years, analysts say in surveys ahead of the Aug 12 crop report.

Commodity prices will tumble if U.S. farmers harvest record corn and soybean crops this fall, says Farm Futures.

The U.S. corn and soybean crops are in phenomenally good shape for the first week of August, said the weekly Crop Progress report, despite dry July weather in the western Corn Belt.

U.S. farmers will harvest the first 14-billion-bushel corn crop this fall, breaking the record for corn production by half-a-billion bushels, say estimates from two major companies according to Reuters.

Analysts expect record U.S. corn and soybean yields this fall that will be 3.5 percent higher than the marks set five years ago, according to a straw poll by Reuters. On average, the 20 analysts pegged the corn yield at 170.5 bushels an acre and soybeans at 45.6 bushels an acre, compared to the record 164.7 for corn and 44.0 for soybeans. The analysts figures are higher than USDA's projections of record-setting crops. USDA will make its first field-based estimate of the crops on Aug 12.

U.S. corn exports are climbing for the third year in a row and will be the fourth largest on record this trade year, thanks to the mammoth crop now being harvested and falling market prices, said the Agriculture Department on Thursday. The 15.2 billion-bushel crop would be just a hair smaller than the record set last year.