Agri-Pulse reports:
Washington, DC — The typically sleepy December USDA crop report had some “silver linings” for corn farmers on Tuesday, according to Oliver Sloup, co-founder of Blue Line Futures in Chicago.
The closely watched World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates trimmed 2025-26 U.S. ending corn stocks from last month’s report by 125 million to 2 billion bushels, the second biggest such reduction in a December WASDE in about two decades, Sloup said in a website post.
The cut in the supply outlook came as USDA lifted its forecast for U.S. corn exports to 3.2 billion bushels, a record if realized. March corn in Chicago ended the day 4.25 cents higher at $4.48 a bushel. The futures mostly have been trading between $4.40 and $4.50 a bushel.
“This report, coupled with other factors, may be enough to help aid a breakout above the top end of the range and give us a bit of a Santa Claus rally,” Sloup said.
Soybeans fell with no bullish signals in the crop report to allay concerns over U.S. exports.
For domestic rice, USDA cut its long-grain export outlook 2 million hundredweight to 62 million on lackluster sales and shipments of rough rice to Mexico and other Latin American markets. It also lowered the 2025-26 all rice season-average farm price (SAFP) forecast by $1.10 per hundredweight to $11.60 on reductions for the long-grain and medium- and short-grain SAFPs.
