WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. corn and soybean stockpiles were far larger than expected on the Sept. 1 start of this marketing year, the U.S. Department of Agricultue said on Monday.
The bigger soybean stockpile will buffer a late start for the fall harvest.
The USDA also said this year’s wheat crop was one percent larger than traders expected while wheat stocks on Sept. 1 were three percent smaller than analysts projected.
USDA pegged corn stocks at 824 million bushels on Sept. 1, 21 percent larger than the average trade estimate, and soybean stocks at 141 million bu., 14 percent larger. It was the smallest soy stocks in four years and smallest corn stocks in 16 years.
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U.S. soybean futures fell to a 1-1/2 week low on Tuesday as China continued to shun purchases from the United States and as forecasts for improved rains in the coming days reinforced expectations for a sizeable Midwest harvest.
Both figures, based on surveys of growers and warehouses, were above the highest estimate of any trader in a survey ahead of the quarterly report. They also were bigger than USDA estimates made three weeks ago of 681 million bu. for corn and 125 million bu. of soybeans.
Also in the report, USDA revised its estimate of the 2012 soybean crop to 3.034 billion bu., up 18.6 million bu. or less than one percent. The change was based on analysis of data from several sources, USDA said.
Tight soybean supplies are expected for the year ahead despite a crop that is forecast to be the fourth-largest ever. High demand was expected to allow only a modestly larger ending stocks figure than the carryover available at the start of this year. The corn harvest is expected to be record large.
Harvest of this year’s late-planted corn and soybean crops is a week or more behind average so only a trickle of new-crop soybeans is in the pipeline to exporters, foodmakers and livestock feeders.
In a companion report, USDA said this year’s wheat crop totaled 2.128 billion bu., up 14 million from its previous estimate and 20 million bu. larger than anaylsts expected. The crop is slightly smaller than average.
USDA surveyed 66,000 growers as part of making estimates for wheat and other small grain crops and for Sept. 1 grain stocks. For the stocks report, it also surveyed all commercial warehouses.
For on-farm storage, USDA says the margin of error for corn is 8 percent, 16 percent for soybeans and 4.4 percent for wheat. Most of those commodities were in commercial storage, whose figure is presumed accurate..
