Ep. 35 Recap of USDA March 2025 Supply/Demand Estimates
Morning Coffee and Ag Markets Podcast
Media Contact
Mary Hightower
U of A System Division of Agriculture
(501) 671-2006 | mhightower@uada.edu
Join Riley Smith for this morning’s Morning Coffee and Ag Markets as he is joined by Mr. Scott Stiles as they discuss the March 2025 USDA WASDE report, released on March 11th. This month’s update saw few changes, with no adjustments to U.S. corn, soybean, or cotton stocks. Soybean prices were lowered to $9.95 per bushel, the lowest since 2019, while corn prices remained at $4.35 per bushel. Long-grain rice imports reached a record high, pushing stocks to 35.3 million cwt, while medium-grain stocks were reduced due to higher exports. Riley and Scott also cover the impact of U.S. tariffs and global trade on the agricultural market.
Riley Smith, Program Associate
Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
rsmith@uada.edu
Scott Stiles, Program Associate - Agricultural Economics
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
sstiles@uada.edu
501-258-8455
Transcript
00;00;07;29 – 00;00;36;13
Riley Smith
All right. Well, we’re going to skip the bull and go straight into it. So good morning. Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets with your host Riley Smith. And today I got Mr. Scott Stiles on a zoom, and we’re talking about the WASDE report. If you don’t know what the WASDE report is, it’s a world agricultural supply and demand estimates and Mr. Scott is going to be talking about the March WASDE report that’s released monthly, around the 10th of each month.
00;00;36;16 – 00;00;47;26
Riley Smith
And so for from, from what we’ve talked about, it didn’t appear to have much change to it.
00;00;47;29 – 00;01;15;01
Scott Stiles
That there was it was a quiet report. Riley. As we were talking about earlier, the USDA didn’t make any supply or demand adjustments to, corn, soybeans or cotton. As we’ve talked about, the, the ending stocks for corn was, were held at 1.54 billion. That’s, where they’ve been since January, as well as the bean stocks at 380 million.
00;01;15;01 – 00;01;44;29
Scott Stiles
So, a held cotton, carryover at 4.9 million bales. So, no, supply demand adjustments for any of those three. They did tweak, season average prices a little bit. They lowered, the, season average price for beans by $0.15 a bushel down to near $9.95 And, they lowered corn or cotton by 50 points down to $0.63.
00;01;45;06 – 00;02;03;07
Scott Stiles
Was there price expectation for the 24 crop average farm price. And it held, corn steady at $4.35 So those are the only changes they made for those for those three crops.
00;02;03;10 – 00;02;29;28
Scott Stiles
It did make, a few adjustments on rice. Looking at the long grain balance sheet, they increased, rice imports again to, about 1 million cwt to a record, 41 million cwt, so that that 1 million increase went straight to the bottom line. So long grain ending stocks that at 35.3 million. It’s up quite a bit.
00;02;29;28 – 00;03;07;29
Scott Stiles
That’s up 16 million from from last year’s, 19.3. Medium grain increased, medium grain exports by 1 million and reduced, carryover for medium grain by the same amount. So medium grain, stocks that had a, a fairly tight 10 million cwt right now. So, they did improve their price outlook a little bit for rice.
00;03;08;01 – 00;03;38;00
Scott Stiles
Just, I can locate my notes. Will be they had increased the long grain, average farm price to $14.20 per cwt. That’s up $0.20 from from last month. And they increased the medium grain, season average price by $0.40 up to $15.20 So a cwt. So those were the.
00;03;38;03 – 00;03;40;17
Riley Smith
6, $6.84 a bushel.
00;03;40;19 – 00;03;53;18
Scott Stiles
That’s, think you. Right. So, is that right? Yeah. $6.84 for medium grain and then $6.39 a bushel for long grain, so.
00;03;53;20 – 00;04;02;11
Riley Smith
I did see also in the report, I saw that, they increased the ending stocks for wheat and sorghum a little bit. A little. Well.
00;04;02;13 – 00;04;28;04
Scott Stiles
Yeah, they increased their wheat, ending stocks about 25 million bushels. That was only, 10 million bushel increase in imports and a 15 million bushel reduction in exports. So, so the total total wheat was increased by, 25 million bushels to 819 million.
00;04;28;06 – 00;04;40;22
Riley Smith
And they they showed the 24/25 outlook for U.S exports was revised lower for wheat and sorghum this month as well. These and I’m assuming that’s where the increase of ending stocks come from.
00;04;40;25 – 00;05;19;02
Scott Stiles
Right. And lowered sorghum exports quite a bit 70 million bushels. And a lot of that’s driven by, chatter in past years. I mean, China is the is the export market for grain sorghum. And, their sales to them are way down this year. I mean, normally, China could be 90 to 95% of our export market, that for grain sorghum, but they’re off quite a, quite a bit compared to past years.
00;05;19;04 – 00;05;52;14
Scott Stiles
So like an it, yeah. Our sorghum sales for the current market and year down 78% year on year to China. So a lot of but that 70 million reduction, a lot of that was offset by, 50 million bushel increase in sorghum used for feed. So was it is expected to be a, you know, a little bit cheaper alternative, in to feed rations than corn.
00;05;52;14 – 00;06;03;17
Scott Stiles
So there is that so there was a 50 million bushel jump and, and, so we’re going to use for feed. So that offset a lot of that reduction in exports.
00;06;03;20 – 00;06;22;16
Riley Smith
Yeah. I think a, I think based on what I know about the, coming to the feed market, sorghum is about 90. I’ve always been told the sorghum market is usually around 90% of the corn market. So it is that pretty accurate?
00;06;22;19 – 00;06;25;13
Scott Stiles
That’s true.
00;06;25;15 – 00;06;30;14
Riley Smith
So I could see definitely where that would be a cheaper, cheaper commodity to use in a feed ration.
00;06;30;16 – 00;06;32;13
Scott Stiles
Yeah.
00;06;32;15 – 00;06;40;25
Riley Smith
What about our, I wanted to ask you, what about our part, our competition in the Deep South. Was there any any talk on that?
00;06;40;27 – 00;07;09;15
Scott Stiles
The, the USDA didn’t make any changes this month to the, any of the South American production, for corn, beans, rice or cotton? I just left those. Left those as is. So it’s, What? You know, it’s too early still to make any adjustments to the Brazilian corn crop. It’s, still being planted, and, and it’s early.
00;07;09;15 – 00;07;35;15
Scott Stiles
Early days on that. They are about 60% of the way through on a Brazilian bean harvest, but, weather’s, you know, not not too concerning at this point for Brazil or Argentina. We continue to keep an eye on it. But, at this point, it’s, nothing to be, too concerned about right at the moment.
00;07;35;17 – 00;07;38;11
Riley Smith
What about the, now the.
00;07;38;11 – 00;07;39;13
Riley Smith
World.
00;07;39;15 – 00;07;45;12
Riley Smith
Stocks on soybeans and corn. Can you briefly tell us about that
00;07;45;15 – 00;07;48;00
Scott Stiles
Okay
00;07;48;02 – 00;08;18;29
Scott Stiles
They did reduce the world buying stocks a little bit, down almost 30 million tons. But, that’s still a record held record large soybean stocks, corn stocks with China included, or the or pretty much decade lows, or the lowest since 2014. If you take China out, probably the lowest since 2012. So the fairly, you know, a lot tighter situation and in global corn stocks.
00;08;18;29 – 00;08;24;10
Scott Stiles
But being set at record record large levels.
00;08;24;12 – 00;08;50;09
Riley Smith
Now and talking about China, we’ll we’ll address the big question. Has there been any, any discussion on, tariff and trade policies going into effect and in the WASDE report or seeing any kind of effect from those in the WASDE I don’t think, what is it? Canada. Mexico. It doesn’t go into it shouldn’t go into effect till April 2nd.
00;08;50;09 – 00;08;57;29
Riley Smith
But I think China’s got input tariffs on, import tariffs on U.S. ag commodities at this moment.
00;08;58;02 – 00;08;58;26
Scott Stiles
Right.
00;08;58;29 – 00;09;00;17
Riley Smith
Was there any discussion on that.
00;09;01;00 – 00;09;28;27
Scott Stiles
Okay. So the so yes, the tariffs on Canada and Mexico were, pushed back to April 2nd so that any impacts from that was not addressed in the, in the march was the, the, chair, China did have some tariffs in place. On USA commodities. They’re very dependent on commodities. I think it’s 10%. Import tariff on an additional 10% import tariff on U.S. soybeans.
00;09;28;27 – 00;09;52;18
Scott Stiles
And then, additional 15% tariff on US corn and cotton, or just a couple of the other commodities that there were there. Several. But, those two of those three kind of stand out. But those tariffs that China imposed on US commodities were already in place. And and the impacts or projected impacts from those were addressed this month.
00;09;52;18 – 00;09;57;18
Scott Stiles
And, and the March, WASDE.
00;09;57;20 – 00;10;20;08
Riley Smith
Now we were was talking about it earlier, those kind of the my assumption based on what could be in the April WASDE report not saying that I know what it’s going to be, but do you think there will be a change in the balance sheet when that when those tariffs for Canada and Mexico do go into effect?
00;10;20;10 – 00;10;53;21
Scott Stiles
If, if they go into effect, USDA may may make some adjustments to, to U.S. exports. And, as you know, as we know, I mean, Mexico is traditionally our our largest export market for corn. They’re fairly significant in other commodities as well. Their second largest export market for soybeans, you know, a top five export market for cotton, number one and long grain references.
00;10;53;22 – 00;11;20;29
Scott Stiles
So you could see theoretically, you could see some adjustments in all of those commodities in terms of of export demand from, from Mexico. Canada is, our number one export market for, for ethanol. So, a number of things could be impacted if the tariffs go into effect in April, which we’d know that, you know, it’s it’s anybody’s guess whether that’ll happen.
00;11;20;29 – 00;11;27;26
Scott Stiles
But at this point, they’re expected to go and go on to place April 2nd.
00;11;27;28 – 00;11;52;25
Riley Smith
You know what’s interesting? So talking with Ryan late last week, we had a we had a big in-depth discussion about what a tariff is in, and I wasn’t quite familiar what you hear tariff. And you think, you know, that it affects the, country of import. So if China puts an import on US goods, then that’s going to hurt.
00;11;52;25 – 00;12;18;02
Riley Smith
Not necessarily the country of import, the country of export, that it’ll affect them. So you’d think that it would, if if they put a tariff on us then it would affect us. But whoever the importer is and puts that tariff on an export, it actually turns out to be somewhat of a tax. That’s basically what it is.
00;12;18;02 – 00;12;52;00
Riley Smith
And we’re going to cover this in another episode. But Ryan is putting together kind of a fact sheet and putting together some other stuff, getting more information and, and research on it. But I just found that interesting that, you know, as an exporter our ag commodities, you’d think that it would. Yes, it does affect us in the domestic market, but in their market over there, whoever the manufacturer is that imports, that supplier has to pay a tax and which pays that tariff?
00;12;52;03 – 00;13;02;07
Riley Smith
The a versa, or vice versa. So that’s, that’s what was interesting to me is that a tariff is basically a tax.
00;13;02;09 – 00;13;38;12
Scott Stiles
Yeah. Yeah. Along those lines. It’s a good, good point to make is it. I mean, not just, you know, not just grains. And in the crops that we grow will be impacted, but if, we import, probably 80, 80 to 85% of the potash that that, imported comes from Canada. And at this point, you know, our worst fears were that there’d be a 25% import tariff on Canadian potash.
00;13;38;12 – 00;14;02;14
Scott Stiles
And I see that that’s been hopefully revised down to, to a 10%, tariff. It’d be great if there was not one at all, but but, but it looks like at this point, we could see a 10%, tariff on, on Canadian potash and, and energies, any of the, the fuel that we import from, from Canada.
00;14;02;14 – 00;14;24;23
Scott Stiles
So though that added, tariff, you know, that cost will be passed on to the consumer. And, so just, there’s an there’s an example of, of, you know, how our input costs are going to be affected as well as is, you know, the commodities that we grew.
00;14;24;26 – 00;14;53;08
Riley Smith
Yeah, that’ll definitely, in a roundabout way, it what it does is, is it affects the supplier domestically and then it directly and then it indirectly affects the consumer because therefore they have to raise their prices in order for, to purchase that purchase that product or that good. Therefore they have to increase their price. And so therefore indirectly affects the consumer to, to, purchase that product.
00;14;53;11 – 00;15;16;28
Riley Smith
And, but anyway, that’ll be another episode. But Mr. Scott’s got the, on the newsletter. We’ve got the link, and I’ll make sure to, include that link in the description of the podcast as well. So you could go look at the March 2025 WASDE report if, if you want to, other than that, Mr. Scott, is there anything else we, we need to cover?
00;15;17;00 – 00;15;39;16
Scott Stiles
I think we’ve I think we’ve covered it pretty well. All right. I would just remind people a big report coming up March 31st is the perspective Plannings. And it’s a survey, based report that, growers provide their planting intentions for 2025 and, and, and, looking forward to seeing at the end of the month and, and discussing that.
00;15;39;16 – 00;15;51;26
Scott Stiles
So at this point, it looks like we’re going to see a pretty significant increase in corn and some reduction in beans. So let’s see, we’ll find out, what growers are still thinking. At the end of the month.
00;15;51;29 – 00;16;11;28
Riley Smith
And, I know that we are going to cover that in the podcast episode as well, but hard to believe that planting season is sneaking up on us. And it, for our South Arkansas guys, a lot of them probably going to start if if the weather conditions are right, then they’ll, start putting corn in the ground in the march and, April be full swing.
00;16;12;05 – 00;16;15;01
Riley Smith
Everybody start start planting. So.
00;16;15;03 – 00;16;39;22
Scott Stiles
Yeah. That’s so NASS release to crop progress for some states. Monday and Louisiana was already 5% planted on rice. Mississippi had a little bit of corn planted just a small percentage, maybe 1%, but but, it’s, it’s that time of year. So we’re seeing some planting south of us.
00;16;39;25 – 00;17;02;23
Riley Smith
Well, Mr. Scott, I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to, sit down the podcast episode with me. Give us a update on the, on the march WASDE report. Assuming that, we’re going to try to figure out a, a date to cover the April WASDE report there probably be some expected changes if those tariffs go into effect April 2nd.
00;17;02;25 – 00;17;11;18
Riley Smith
So we’ll we’ll, we’ll probably do a cover on that, or update on that as well. But, I appreciate you taking the time, sir.
00;17;11;21 – 00;17;15;03
Scott Stiles
Enjoyed it and enjoyed discussing the markets with you.
00;17;15;06 – 00;17;37;21
Riley Smith
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Well, everyone, stay tuned for my market report. Thanks. All right, guys, back with your market report. May 25 Corn current prices at $4.61 per bushel a month agos price is at $5.04 per bushel. That’s down $0.43 and a year ago price was at $4 and 41 for $0.41 a bushel. That’s up $0.20. May 25.
00;17;37;21 – 00;18;01;22
Riley Smith
Rice. Current prices at $13.94 per cwt month agos price was at $13.89 per cwt. That’s down $0.05 in a year agos price was at $17.98 per cwt. That’s down $4.14 since May 25 Soybeans current prices at $10.01 per bushel a month agos price is at $10.46 per bushel. That’s down $0.45. And year agos prices at $11.97 per bushel.
00;18;01;22 – 00;18;27;17
Riley Smith
That’s down $1.96. July 25 wheat current price is at $5.70 per bushel. A month ago, prices at $5.99 per bushel. That’s down $0.29 in a year and a year ago, price was at $5.58 per bushel. That’s up $0.12. May 25 Cotton current prices at $0.67 per pound. Month ago prices at $0.69 per pound. That’s down $0.02. And a year ago price was at $0.95 per pound.
00;18;27;17 – 00;18;55;15
Riley Smith
That’s down $0.28 weekly US average for peanuts. Current price is at $486 per ton a month agos prices at $520 per ton. That’s down $34 in a year agos prices at $528 per ton. That’s down $42. That’s your weekly commodity futures this week. Your weekly, fertilizer prices this week, Urea is at $550 per ton, ammonium nitrate at $542 per ton, ammonium sulfates at $552.50 per ton.
00;18;55;15 – 00;19;25;07
Riley Smith
DAP is at $770.67 per ton, triple Super phosphates at $662.50 per ton. Potash is at $450 per ton. AG lime is $45 per ton, and pellet lime this week is $237.50 per ton. Your diesel prices this week. Off road diesels $2.51 per gallon. Highway diesels $3.28 per gallon. And your Mississippi River level at Memphis, Tennessee this week. Current levels at 11.6ft and year ago was at 11.69ft.
00;19;25;13 – 00;19;35;17
Riley Smith
I want to thank you all again for joining in on another episode of Morning Coffee and AG Markets. We hope you enjoyed it and enjoyed your morning coffee as you tuned into another episode. So until next week, we’ll catch you on the flip flop.
00;19;35;21 – 00;19;54;27
Riley Smith
Bye bye now!
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Media Contact
Mary Hightower
U of A System Division of Agriculture
(501) 671-2006 | mhightower@uada.edu