U.S. wheat sees most notable changes in March S/D report

Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm – No change was the central theme to the March supply and demand report from the United States Department of Agriculture issued on March 11. In most categories of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), the USDA kept the same data as in its February report.

The USDA led the report with a note regarding the Trump administration’s tariffs, stating the data only encompassed the trade policies at the time of writing. That meant the department kept to the suspension of any levies covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement until April 2.

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“However, until these are in effect, WASDE does not incorporate them into commodity forecasts. Despite U.S. tariffs being suspended, Canada’s retaliatory tariffs remain in place. These are accounted for in WASDE estimates and are assumed to continue. U.S. tariffs on China and China’s retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. are assumed to remain in place,” said the report.

U.S. crops

The most notable change in this month’s report was to 2024/25 U.S. wheat ending stocks, which were raised by 25 million bushels to 819 million. The USDA added 10 million bushels to wheat imports, now at 140 million and exports were reduced by 15 million bushels to 835 million.

Otherwise, corn was a carbon copy of the domestic data in the February estimates. While the trade projected the 2024/25 carryout to dip to 1.52 billion bushels, it was held at 1.54 billion. Also, ending stocks for 2024/25 U.S. soybeans were maintained at 380 million bushels, inline with trade expectations.

South America

The trade was a bit off the mark with its calls on Argentine and Brazil production of soybeans. Market predictions pegged the 2024/25 Argentina harvest at 48.9 million tonnes, but the USDA remained at 49 million. For Brazil soybeans, the average guess was at 165.90 million tonnes, with the USDA staying at 169 million.

For South American corn, the trade called for Argentina’s output for the current year to slip to 49 million tonnes, but the USDA kept their estimate at 50 million. Market projections were correct on the USDA keeping Brazil’s corn production at 126 million tonnes.

The March WASDE upped global wheat ending stocks by 2.52 million tonnes at 260.08 million. The world corn carryover was cut by 1.37 million tonnes at 288.94 million and that for soybeans dropped 2.93 million tonnes at 121.41 million.