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USDA raises South American soybean estimate

An ag economist says USDA raising South American soybean production estimates comes as no surprise.

Todd Hubbs with the University of Illinois tells Brownfield the crop is off to an excellent start.

“There’s a few dry areas, but no real serious problems that I’ve heard of.”

USDA raised its soybean estimate for South America from 367 million tons to 369 million with a 1.5 million ton increase for Brazil.

Hubbs says many analysts anticipate the Brazilian crop to get even bigger.

“We’ll see as we move through the rest of the growing season, but South America has had a really good crop year in Brazil.  Not bad in Argentina or Uruguay either.  So I expect that number to go up.”

Hubbs says Brazil has been forward-contracting soybeans to China, as expected.  But what really concerns him are reports of sales after March to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.