News

USDA outlook meeting previews June WASDE

The head of the USDA’s World Agricultural Outlook Board says he’s keeping a close eye on South American corn supplies and the upcoming second crop harvest.

Mark Jekanowski says, “The size of that crop is going to be critically important to potentially make up for some of those more limited supplies out of Ukraine.”

He says the USDA uses the March planting intentions acreage as a baseline, but… “If there were a real strong compelling case to move off of that, that would be considered,” Jekanowski said. “We’re going to continue to look at those yield forecasts and potentially adjust those.”

Joe Glauber with the International Food Policy Research Institute says one of the biggest issues is stocks are at low levels. “Prices are really high, and I don’t think we need to be telling farmers what they should be planting,” he said. “I think the market is saying very clearly what needs to be planted.”

The next supply and demand report is out June 10^th.