On Friday, Jan. 11, USDA will release its final estimates on corn and soybean production and acreage for the 2012-13 crop year as well as quarterly estimates for U.S. grains stocks and its monthly world and domestic supply and demand estimates.
“The January reports will have the final numbers,” says Chad Hart, Iowa State University agricultural economist. “I don’t expect a lot of changes on the supply side. The crops matured quickly, they were harvested quickly, so USDA’s November estimates should be good.”
USDA will release five reports Jan. 11: Crop Production, Annual Crop Production, Winter Wheat Seedings, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, and Grain Stocks.
New Release Time
Beginning this month, USDA will release major crop reports at noon, EST, instead of at 8:30 a.m. Affected reports are World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, Acreage, Crop Production, Grain Stocks, Prospective Plantings, and Small Grains Summary.
In response to changes in market hours by major commodity exchanges, USDA sought public comment on changing the release time for major crop reports. Following that review, USDA announced the later release time in September.
“The shift to a noon release allows for the greatest liquidity in the markets, provides the greatest access to the reports during working hours in the United States, and continues equal access to data among all parties,” USDA Chief Economist Joseph W. Glauber says in a USDA press release.
Watch U.S. Corn Stocks
Allendale, a brokerage services firm in McHenry, Illinois, will be closely watching two of the five reports released next week. “For corn, we’ll be watching the quarterly Grain Stocks report,” says Rich Nelson, chief strategist at Allendale. The Grain Stocks reports for the 2009-10 crop all held surprises on U.S. corn stocks. “We have little confidence in the trade’s ability to guess these numbers, especially with the early harvest,” says Nelson.
USDA’s grain stocks survey specifically asked how much grain producers had in the bin as of September 1 from the 2012-13 corn crop as opposed to old-crop inventory, but with 1 billion bushels of corn harvested prior to September 1, Nelson says USDA has had trouble separating stocks by crop year.
World grain stocks will be reported in WASDE, but few changes in inventory numbers for either Brazil or Argentina are expected. World grain stocks will not be that important this month, Nelson adds.
While some analysts expect USDA to decrease corn production for the 2012-13 crop year due to a revision in harvested acreage, Allendale does not expect a major change in corn production.
For More Information
Here’s what you need to know for USDA’s Jan. 11 Crop Production, Annual Crop Production, Winter Wheat Seedings, WASDE Grain Stocks reports. Read AgWeb’s Pre-Report Analysis, News of Jan. 11 Reports.
