US Corn and Soybean Concerns: Drought Impact and Crop Conditions Worsen

Agriculture – US corn and soybean concerns

The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA’s) latest crop progress report continues to highlight concerns for the US corn and soybean crop, given current dry weather conditions. The USDA rated 50% of the corn crop in good-to-excellent condition over the last reporting week, lower than 55% a week ago and 67% seen at the same stage last year. In fact, the rating for the corn crop is the lowest seen for this time of year since 1988, whilst it is a similar story for soybeans, with 51% of the soybean crop rated good-to-excellent condition, down from 54% a week ago and 65% seen at the same stage last year. These poor crop conditions will leave speculative shorts nervous as we move through the growing season, and this is the reason why we have already seen some large amounts of short covering. Meanwhile, for winter wheat, an improvement was seen in crop conditions with 40% of the crop in good-to-excellent condition, up from 38% seen a week ago.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry reported that Ukrainian grain exports remained almost unchanged from the previous year and stood at 48.4mt for 2022/23 as of 26 June with the current season nearing its end. These shipments include 16.6mt of wheat (down 11% year-on-year) and 28.8mt of corn (up 23% YoY). In a separate data release, the EU’s Monitoring Agricultural Resources unit projects Russia’s wheat harvest to fall 17% YoY to 86.7mt for 2023, as mixed weather conditions continue to hurt the wheat crop.