The outlook for 2024-25 US corn is a bit tighter this month, despite upward revisions to this year’s average yield and production estimates.
The USDA’s monthly supply-demand update on Thursday pegged 2024-25 corn ending stocks at 2.057 billion bu, down a modest 16 million from the August estimate but still above the downwardly revised 2023-24 ending stocks of 1.812 billion.
This month’s fall in the 2024-25 ending stocks projection is entirely due to a cut in beginning stocks, which were trimmed 55 million bu from August in response to upward revisions in 2023-24 exports and corn used for ethanol. The decline in beginning stocks was more than enough to offset by a 39-million bu increase in the 2024 production estimate to 15.186 billion bu, spurred on by a 0.5 bu/acre hike in the average yield to 183.6 bu/acre.
US corn harvested area was left unchanged from August at 82.7 million acres.
The 2024-25 ending stocks estimate was slightly above the average pre-report trade guess of 2.033 billion bu, with most traders and analysts also expecting small downgrades in this year’s average yield and production estimates compared to August. Corn futures were trading about 3 cents/bu lower following the report’s noon hour ET release.
The USDA is projecting the 2024-25 season average corn price at $4.10/bu this month, down a dime from August and below $4.65 in 2023-24.
Globally, the USDA left its 2023-24 Brazil and Argentina corn production estimates unchanged from last month at 122 million and 50 million tonnes, respectively.
For 2024-25, the USDA lowered its China import forecast by 2 million tonnes from August to 21 million, down from 23.5 million in 2023-24. World corn ending stocks for 2024-25 are estimated at 308.35 million tonnes this month, down from 310.17 million in August and below 309.63 million a year earlier. Going into today’s report, the average trade guess had world corn ending stocks for 2024-25 at 309.4 million tonnes.
