USDA is predicting a never-before-seen corn production of 16.7 billion bushels. China has yet to buy a single bushel of new crop U.S. soybeans. And yet, while commodity prices remain relatively low this summer, they aren’t a complete train wreck.
How is this so?
That’s one of several questions that were asked of a panel of leading market experts that included Arlan Suderman (#StoneX), Matt Bennett (AgMarket.net), Vince Reincke (Strategic Farm Marketing) and Bruce Blythe (Farm Futures) in a Farm Progress Show panel titled “How to be a Price Maker in the Grain Market.”
Another bombshell survey revealed
Farm Futures revealed estimates from its latest grower survey at the 2025 FPS, which included another almost unfathomable U.S. corn yield estimate of 195 bushels per acre.
“A yield that high moves us from USDA’s record-breaking estimate of nearly 189 bushels per acre to a level that seems borderline incomprehensible from a national standpoint,” Blythe said.
“We need to consider that the USDA survey was gathered in late July and early August, just before dry conditions started dominating several areas of the corn belt and before we have any idea what impact tassel wrap and disease may have on yield,” Blythe said. “We also need to remember that it’s still very early in the yield-guessing game. At the moment, the futures trade appears convinced we’ve seen the high corn yield and numbers will be revised lower in coming months. But USDA can also revise numbers higher.”
The Farm Futures survey also eclipsed USDA’s soybean yield estimate of 53.6 bpa, with respondents reporting an average of 56 bpa.
Wherever the final production numbers land, the corn crop almost certainly will be one of the highest on record. And that’s where the industry must focus its attention, Blythe says.
“Whatever the case, it seems a near-lock that we’re going to have big, potentially record harvests,” Blythe said. “Trade focus eventually will shift to demand, which needs to remain strong to absorb what may be burdensome supplies in 2026.”
Do big crops really get bigger?
Bennett suspects that USDA’s August estimate of 188.8 bushels per acre for corn, which left a lot of farmers frustrated, may not actually play out, noting that the weather this month has divided a lot of farms into “haves and have nots.”
“We can’t buy a rain to save our life in Shelby Co. [Illinois],” he offers as one anecdotal example.
Suderman admits he took a lot of heat for the bullish StoneX survey that preceded the August WASDE report, but says they were simply sharing the responses from their customer survey.
Still, Suderman asked himself if the adage “big crops get bigger” is actually true.
“I went back and looked at the last 32 years, and USDA raised their August corn yields 17 times in that report,” he says. “And out of those 17 times, the final yield was bigger than the August yield just five times.”
So that so-called conventional wisdom isn’t as accurate as you may think – big crops actually tend to get smaller, Suderman says, adding that he believes the futures market has already priced in the size of the crop.
“These major funds invest millions and millions of dollars in these markets,” he says. “You don’t invest that kind of money without having the best yield predictions money can buy.”
Blythe agrees that yield potential is still very much in flux. He speculates that the mindset of the trade right now is that the low could be in for now.
Because of this, “the September 12 WASDE could be a key market-mover,” he says.
Art of the deal
One of the more bearish specters looming right now is China’s absence in buying new crop U.S. soybeans.
“With soybeans, it comes down to when we get a trade deal with China,” Suderman says. That’s no exaggeration – China accounted for 54% of all U.S. soybean exports in 2024.
Compounding the issue is that U.S. soybean exports tend to peak in the fall months, but China also books new crop sales earlier than that. At this point in the past, they would have typically bought 200-400 million bushels by now, according to Suderman. But this year, China purchased around 425 million bushels of soybeans from South America instead.
“So that’s business we’ve already lost,” he says. “The question is now, what do they want to do, and what they will do?”
On a more hopeful note, it does appear that agricultural trade is back on President Trump’s radar after he made a comment on social media earlier in August urging China to “quickly quadruple its soybean orders” from the U.S. They won’t actually do that (“it’s Trump speak”), but it is a signal that the president wants to negotiate – and negotiations are indeed kicking off on August 28-29.
What you can do
Calls? Puts? Sell the carry? Storage strategies? Grain marketing tactics can leave your head swimming, but Reincke says you should have enough information on-hand to make knowledgeable choices, even if they don’t always pan out.
“Be as data-driven as you can – it will help you be less emotional,” he says.
Bennett tends to agree: “You’ll never sell anything if you’re fearful of tomorrow.”
One strategy Bennett has mulled is buying a put option in soybeans and storing that grain until basis improves (“basis stinks right now,” as Bennett puts it). “I know nobody likes to store beans, but maybe we have to look at this differently than we usually do.”
Bennett advises farmers to adopt a base hit mentality.
“We have to get on base,” he says. “Get hit by a pitch. Let’s just try and get on base somehow. If you try to hit a homerun [in this environment] you’re going to strike out.”
Blythe wonders what the next big market-mover will emerge after harvest? Prices won’t stay low forever, after all. It therefore will pay dividends to look to the horizon for the next possible rally.
“It’s out there somewhere,” he says. “Those black swans are lurking. The world is a crazy, unpredictable place.”