U.S. wheat exports could hit 38 year low
Farm and Ranch January 14, 2010 This week’s winter seeding report from the USDA was certainly friendly coming in well under trade expectations at just over 37 million acres. However, the USDA’s supply and demand numbers for wheat were bearish. The government boosted its estimate of U.S. wheat carryover stocks for the end of this marketing year by 76 million bushels up to 976 million. A third larger than this past year. USDA trimmed its export forecast by 50 million bushels, which at 825 million bushels would be the lowest level of U.S. wheat exports since 1971-72. Peter Georgantones with Investment Trading Services in Bloomington, Minnesota says with U.S. wheat supplies at a nearly 50 percent stocks-to-use ratio it is going to take another crop year to get rid of the burdensome wheat stocks. He says the reduced winter wheat plantings will help, but its not enough. Georgantones: “That’s good for knocking about 250 million bushels off of this carryout for next year, but it still takes you down to a 700 lets say or something of that fashion depending upon what they do up in the spring wheat belt this year. It is not just going to happen by reducing your acreage. I mean 700 is too high and 600 is too high. You have to probably be staring down about at 550 a 500 carryout number for I think we can have some kind of a sustainable rally.” One positive for northwest wheat growers is that soft white wheat carryout is still forecast at 42 million bushels which would be a year-to-year decline in ending stocks. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network. ? ? ? ? ?
