Nearby and new crop prices were unchanged a week ago at the crush plants. U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report. To the surprise of market analysts, USDA made no changes to U.S. corn and soybean supply numbers from the March report. The WASDE report pegged the U.S. 2022-2023 corn ending stocks at 1.342 billion bushels, reflecting no change from March. This is above the trade’s estimate of 1.319 billion bushels. For soybeans, the U.S. ending stocks were pegged at 210 million bushels, in line with the March estimate and above the trade’s expectation of 198 million bushels. USDA pegged the U.S. wheat ending stocks at 598 million bushels, an increase from March’s estimate of 568 million bushels and above the trade’s expectation of 574 million bushels. Per USDA, Brazil’s bin busting soybean production increased with Argentina’s drought plagued production decreasing further from their March estimate. In the sunflower production region, the deep snowpack in North Dakota and Minnesota is likely to delay planting of early season crops beyond optimal planting dates. In addition, below normal temperatures with above normal precipitation are forecast to linger the rest of this month. Late season planted crops like sunflower are a good option to replace these crops and can perform well and markets will reward that production. With lower than anticipated acres, diversifying market risk with some sunflower acres would be a good option in 2023.
