WASDE Projects U.S. Exports, Prices Down, Ending Stocks Up

By CnAgri Print

With wheat farmers around the U.S. watching weather maps and soil moisture levels carefully, the world is watching production, stocks and export estimates, including the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, out Tuesday from USDA. Wheat prices reflected the generally bearish report.

The December WASDE projected U.S. wheat ending stocks for the marketing year from June 2012 until May 2013 to be up 1.4 MMT due to decreased exports, which USDA lowered 1.3 MMT for hard red winter (HRW), 0.3 MMT for soft red winter (SRW) and 0.1 MMT for hard red spring (HRS). (Export projections were up 0.3 MMT for white wheat.) For the year, U.S. export sales are now at 60 percent of the new forecast.

USDA lowered and narrowed the range for its projected 2012/2013 season average farm price for all wheat, to $7.70 to $8.30 per bushel.

Globally, USDA projected 2012/2013 wheat supplies to be up by 1.6 MMT, with 3.7 MMT in world production more than offsetting lower beginning stocks. By-country production estimates were raised for China (2.6 MMT), Australia (1.0 MMT) and Canada (0.5 MMT), while they were lowered slightly for Brazil and the European Union (EU).

USDA projected global wheat exports will be up slightly, with more exports coming out of Australia (0.5 MMT), the EU (0.5 MMT) and India (0.5 MMT) and less coming from the U.S., Paraguay and Turkey. USDA raised import projections for Brazil, China, Iran and Russia, but lowered import projections for Turkey.

USDA now projects world wheat ending stocks 2.8 MMT higher on increases for the U.S., Australia, Russia and the EU.