Winds of change are blowing through markets, lifting the fog from tariffs and the government shutdown. Don’t expect clarity to be quick – or free of pain. Key data remains unknown as reports dribbled out last week, and some important milestones may never be updated.
A footnote on the Nov. 14 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates admitted some data was missing due to the “lapse in government funding” without specifying what was unavailable.
As a result, the November WASDE seemed like a nothing burger. Changes to 2025 corn and soybean production totals were minimal and that alone may have caused some of the violent swings in futures prices that aptly demonstrated how volatility is alive and well.
USDA normally doesn’t update production until January. However, other facets of supply and demand could receive more than the traditional adjustments in December. Of course, nothing is written in stone in this most unusual of years. Until then, here’s what I glean from sources that are available.
Crops are big
Corn production for 2025 in the November WASDE fell slightly, thanks to a 0.7 bpa drop in average U.S. yields to 186 bpa. Still, at an estimated 16.752 billion bushels, the crop would easily be a record, up 9.2% from the previous benchmark set in 2023.
Average soybean yields also were lower by a half-bushel per acre, dropping to 53 bpa nationwide for a crop of 4.253 billion. That’s down 2.8% from last year and 4.7% smaller than the all-time high from 2021.
Adjustments to balance sheets also were mainly tweaks. Domestic corn usage was unchanged, with a 100-million-bushel increase in exports offsetting almost half the larger beginning inventories noted in Sept. 1 stocks. The result was estimated carryout on Aug. 31, 2026, of 2.154 billion bushels. That’s 44 million more than estimated in the last WASDE from September.
And the average cash price received by farmers was put at $4, up a dime.
With soybean crush unchanged, lower supplies cut exports 50 million bushels, taking carryout down 10 million to 290 million bushels. That was enough to add 50 cents to the average cash price received by farmers to $10.50, up 50 cents from both September and the 2024 crop.
Soybeans: Global production adds volatility
It’s hard to argue too much with any of those numbers. That doesn’t mean risk is taking its own furlough.
Soybeans perhaps face the most uncertainty, emanating between poles 11,000 miles apart – from South America to China.
The first batch of sales reports from USDA confirmed the long-awaited start of Chinese purchases following what appears to be another extension of the trade truce reached earlier this year.
But China’s buying depends on more than politics.
Demand historically is a function of economic growth, and the Asian power continues to sputter. The latest data suggests slowing industrial output, retail sales and investment. All of that adds up to deflationary pressure.
Exports from the U.S. could still be stronger than anticipated, however, if production in South America stalls. Yields there could suffer from the La Nina cooling of the equatorial Pacific, which is expected to last into March. Argentina is especially vulnerable. So far, that possibility seems remote: Conditions in Argentina are 20% to 40% above normal, according to Vegetation Health Index maps generated by satellites that keep circling the Earth, shutdown or no shutdown.
Conditions in Brazil are mixed, but close to normal so far.
While China isn’t a major player normally in the global corn market, total U.S. exports to all destinations look like they could still be a record, topping 3 billion bushels for the first time. Sales data out so far is only through the last week of September, but that hardly supported a ticker tape parade: Commitments were the lowest since at least 1987. So clearly, the jury is still out on that forecast.
Beware of market backlash
With the next big USDA report still nearly two months away, backlash from financial markets could be important for futures. Failure of nearby corn to hold $4.10 support opens the door to a test of $3.60 to $3.75.
For soybeans, a nearby break below $11 puts $9.40 to $10 in play.
And that’s the problem. Nothing guarantees the landscape emerging from the fog will be pretty.