WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – The record U.S. soybean harvest in 2014 was even bigger than expected, pushing domestic supplies to their highest in eight years ahead of what is expected to be a bumper harvest in South America, according to government data released on Monday.
The U.S. Agriculture Department also said that U.S. corn stocks were a record 11.203 billion bushels as of Dec. 1, 2014 despite surprisingly large cuts to its production and yield readings.
U.S. farmers cut their winter wheat plantings by 4.6 percent to 40.452 million acres, below the low end of a range of analysts’ forecasts.
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USDA pegged the total U.S. soybean crop at a record 3.969 billion bushels, based on an average yield of 47.8 bushels per acre, also a record. A month ago, USDA said the soybean crop was 3.958 billion bushels and average yield was 47.5 bushels per acre.
The harvest pushed U.S. soybean stocks as of Dec. 1 to 2.524 billion bushels, up from 2.154 billion bushels a year ago but below the 2.590 billion bushels predicted by the average of trade forecasts.
USDA also lowered its outlook for 2014/15 domestic corn ending stocks to 1.877 billion bushels, raised its wheat ending stocks view to 687 million bushels and left soybean end stocks unchanged at 410 million bushels.
The government raised its outlook for Brazil soybean production by 1.5 million tonnes to a record 95.50 million tonnes. Production in Argentina was seen at 55 million tonnes, unchanged from December.
USDA trimmed its U.S. corn harvest view to 14.216 billion bushels from 14.407 billion and the average yield to 171.0 bushels per acre from 173.4. Analysts had been expecting a corn harvest of 14.349 billion bushels and an average yield of 173.3 bushels per acre.
The government raised its harvested corn acres figure to 83.136 million from 83.097 million and cut its soybean acreage to 83.061 million from 83.403 million.
For wheat, USDA said farmers seeded 40.452 million acres of winter wheat, compared to forecasts ranging from 41 million to 44 million. A year ago, total winter wheat plantings were 42.399 million acres.
Acreage for hard red winter wheat, the largest class, fell to 29.5 million. The average of analysts’ hard red winter estimates was 31.023 million acres.
