Corn and Beans Lower Last Week
It was another tough week for corn as it lost around 5 cents a bushel. However, it could have been much worse. Harvest pressure normally brings lower cash prices as farmers fill the pipeline with corn. Normally that results is a wider basis. However, this year feed mills and ethanol plants are bidding up for corn resulting in a much narrow basis! The USDA did lower the projected corn yield 1.4 bushel an acre to 167 bushel an acre. The demand was decreased a bit which put this crop year's carryover at 1.91 billion bushels.
Bean prices consolidated last week and saw small losses of around 5 cents a bushel. The USDA lest the projected bean yield this year unchanged at 46.9 bushel an acre. The USDA also decreased demand by 18 million bushel which put this years carryover at 475 million bushel. Like corn the bean basis is very narrow for harvest time. During harvest we typically see a $1.00 basis. This year the soybean crushers in Mankato and Fairmont have a basis of 35 to 40 cents a bushel. How is it that the basis is so narrow right after according to the USDA harvesting a big soybean crop?