The Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) is pointing to the strong likelihood of a record soyabean harvest being secured in the United States (US) this year.
This week has seen the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) releasing its latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report.
A record soyabean crop is projected in the US based on the combination of a higher planed area and yield forecasts.
The US maize crop was also revised up, though ending stocks of major exporters looked tighter than last month’s figure. However, global wheat ending stocks were revised in a downward direction.
It is now expected that 2024/2025 US soyabean production will now reach 124.9Mt, up from 120.7Mt last month.
Significantly, the latest projection far exceeded the average analyst’s expectation of 121.6Mt.
Soyabean in other countries
Production in other top exporting countries remained unchanged from July.
Global production among top exporters (incl. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and the US) is now estimated to be up 9.1% on the year, and 15.9% higher than the five-year average.
As a result of the revision to the US crop, ending stocks of major exporters are now projected to rise to 78.3Mt, up 26.8% from 2023/2024. If realised, these would be the heaviest ending stocks for major exporters since 2018/2019.
Specifically where maize is concerned, the USDA has raised its US maize production estimate by 1.18Mt to reach 384.7Mt.
This is again above the average analyst expectation of 383.9Mt. Despite this increase, increased US exports leaves ending stocks in the US tighter, now at 52.7Mt, down from 53.3Mt in July and below the average analyst expectation of 53.24Mt.
However, this remains the largest US ending stock figure in six years.
Total production by major exporters (US, Argentina, Brazil and Ukraine) was raised by 0.7Mt by the USDA this week from July’s estimate to 589.9Mt. Ending stocks are forecast at 58.0Mt, down 0.5Mt from July, the heaviest since 2019/2020.
Meanwhile, this season’s wheat production projections in the US and European Union were reduced in the latest WASDE.
However, the increases projected for Australia and Ukraine outweighed the cuts, leaving production by major exporters (incl. Argentina, Australia, Canada, EU, Russia, Ukraine and the US) up slightly from last month’s report.
World ending stocks of wheat for the 2024/2025 season is projected to reach 256.6Mt, down 0.6Mt from July’s estimate and relatively in line with (0.3Mt below) the average of analysts’ expectations.