USDA Releases Early Baseline Balance Sheet Projections
Posted on 11/29/2016 11:18:16 AM byRandy Mittelstaedt of RJ Obrien
This morning, the USDA put out an early release of their 10-year baseline balance sheet projections, which are used for government budgetary purposes. USDA decided to put out their long-term balance sheet ideas now and will release the full report in February, as they typically do. We have attached the full set of USDA baseline balance sheets to this post, which includes corn, wheat and the soybean complex, but also other feedgrains, livestock, dairy, cotton and sugar. The “starting point” for the baseline balance sheets was the November WASDE report estimates of the 2016/17 marketing year. The 2017/18 and forward balance sheets were built off the expectations from the WASDE report earlier this month, with the potential for some noteworthy revisions to still be seen post-January with the release of the the Annual Crop Production, quarterlyGrain Stocks, Winter Wheat Seedings reports, etc. Additionally, USDA will be releasing 2017/18 balance sheet ideas in late February at the annual Ag Outlook conference, which are deemed much more reflective of actual USDA thinking on the new crop situation than the baseline projections. Fundamentally, we do not put much value on the baseline projections, but they do get looked at by market participants.
Some highlights from the USDA’s baseline projections:
-2017 corn acreage 90.0 million acres and 170.8 bushel/acre yield (94.5 million/175.3 bushels this year) -2017/18
U.S. corn ending stocks 2.298 billion bushels vs 2016/17 stocks currently estimated at 2.403 billion at time of estimates
-2017 soybean acreage 85.5 million acres and 47.9 bushel/acre yield (83.7 million/52.5 bushels this year) -2017/18
U.S. soybean ending stocks 396 million bushels vs 2016/17 stocks at 480 million
-2017 all wheat acreage 48.5 million acres and 47.1 bushel/acre yield (50.2 million/52.6 bushels this year) -2017/18
U.S. wheat ending stocks 993 million bushels vs 2016/17 stocks at 1.143 billion