USDA Outlook Forum

Friday afternoon the USDA released the final numbers from the Annual Outlook Forum. The USDA Economists include baseline projections on production and demand for the next 10 years. I am not sure how you can come up with projections that many years in the future with all the variables of weather around the world. However, traders do pay attention to the projections for the next growing season. Looking at the numbers maybe you could say they were not real bearish?

The USDA projects farmers will plant 85 million acres of soybeans this year. With a "trendline yield" of 49.8 bushel an acre production would be 4.195 billion bushel. The friendly number is projected carryover at only 320 million bushels. Many years the USDA has called for a bean carryover at this time of 600 million to almost 1 billion bushels!

The corn numbers were not as bearish as some expected either. There were traders guessing farmers would plant 100 million acres of corn this year. The USDA projects farmers will plant 94 million acres. With a "trend line" yield of 178.5 bushels an acre that would put production at 15.460 billion bushel. It is bearish that the USDA sees corn carryover increasing to 2.657 billion bushel.