Ep. 51 USDA’s June 30 Acreage Report a Non-Event for Corn and Soybeans

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;31;17
Dr. Hunter Biram
The 2025 June Acreage report from USDA was pretty quiet for corn and beans, was bearish for cotton, rice acreage came in lower, which could be bullish, but the price is lower, interestingly enough. We’re going to hit briefly on marketing strategies for cash and futures and talk about how the seasonal marketing opportunity is closing.

00;00;31;19 – 00;00;44;27
Dr. Hunter Biram
Welcome to another episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets. I’m your host, Hunter Biram, and with me today, I’ve got Mr. Dr. professor Scott Stiles in the studio. How are you, Scott?

00;00;44;29 – 00;00;47;09
Scott Stiles
Fantastic. Good to be with you, Hunter.

00;00;47;12 – 00;01;07;15
Dr. Hunter Biram
As always, it’s great to be with you. I learn so much talking to you. And just, I love your passion for marketing and just appreciate all the work that you do. And so, without further ado, Scott, I just want to, I just want to pick your brain a little bit. What are your thoughts on this, acreage report that came out literally yesterday as of the recording of this?

00;01;07;17 – 00;01;36;29
Scott Stiles
Yeah. Well, it was, it turned out to be pretty quiet as just, as we were talking about earlier, it was a, it was a nonevent for corn and soybeans compared to past years. I look back, at the last few years and a lot of times when you, you get a June acreage report, it can be, plus or minus, anywhere from a million to the 5 million acres, above or below the, the average trade guess.

00;01;36;29 – 00;02;05;04
Scott Stiles
But, yesterday it was, yesterday’s numbers were just right, you know, right in line with the, with the industry estimates ahead of the report. So it was really quiet. And then the corn market closed a penny lower and, and beans were up $0.02. So it just wasn’t, any, you know, sizable market reaction to the, to the numbers because, they just, they came right in on the, on the average trade guesses.

00;02;05;06 – 00;02;26;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
Yeah. I mean, I, I remember, was it, I think it was ‘23, there was a big crop scare event and so acreage, I believe, if I remember right, far favored corn and less soybeans. And I think it was like a 4 million acre swing. I mean, it was massive. It was a massive swing. And so then you saw that corn price tumble and that soybean price shot right up.

00;02;26;12 – 00;02;44;12
Dr. Hunter Biram
And so, you know, I haven’t been doing this very long and, and again, I’m learning and try my best with this. But, you know, this is my, I guess you could say this is my third, my third summer, studying this. Because the, the first summer on, I was just trying to get all my HR work done,

00;02;44;17 – 00;02;59;01
Dr. Hunter Biram
whenever that June acreage report was coming out, because I started in the summer of 22. But this is the third time that I’ve seen this report come out, and, it… I was kind of scared. I mean, I was I was kind of gun shy about it because I was like, man, like, we’ve had some big swings since I’ve started,

00;02;59;01 – 00;03;15;07
Dr. Hunter Biram
is it always like this? And, this would tell us that, no, it’s not. This is actually very unusually, quiet. And so, you know, would you say this is, you know, encouraging, discouraging, or is it something that we shouldn’t even really put too much stock into right now?

00;03;15;10 – 00;03;35;07
Scott Stiles
It’s, Well, I think it, you know, in a lot of ways it confirms the, you know, the fact the weather was good. You know, we had a good, the weather wasn’t great here in the Delta. But when you look at the Midwest, they got an early start. They had, you know, a great, window of opportunity to get the crop planted.

00;03;35;07 – 00;04;05;23
Scott Stiles
So without any weather challenges in the Midwest, then the acreage didn’t really deviate from what growers intended to plant. And so I guess if the numbers reflect anything, it’s the fact that, you know, the Midwest, you know, planning time frame was, you know, was smooth for the most part. Yeah. You know, there were some problems in the Eastern Corn Belt in some areas, but, for the most part, planting went pretty well in the Midwest.

00;04;05;26 – 00;04;22;26
Scott Stiles
And I think the numbers yesterday confirmed that, is that they’re, you know, the growers stuck to their plans. We knew there would be a big increase in corn acres and some sizable reduction in beans. And that’s exactly what we saw in the June 30 numbers. Yeah.

00;04;22;28 – 00;04;24;27
Dr. Hunter Biram
So what about cotton?

00;04;24;29 – 00;04;58;08
Scott Stiles
Well, that was a surprise. And you know, when you see these pre report estimates come out, you know they’re Reuters and Bloomberg survey. You know, probably 20 industry experts that could be university economists, private market analysts, investment banks and going into the report, the top end of anybody’s estimate of cotton acres was 9.9 million acres.

00;04;58;10 – 00;05;24;19
Scott Stiles
And that survey, and 20 of the smartest people in the industry. And, NASS from their survey work, came up with 10.12 million yesterday. So, those are the things that you watch for in these reports, is how do the numbers, how does NASS’s find- the findings in their survey fit into the industry’s expectations?

00;05;24;19 – 00;05;48;13
Scott Stiles
So with cotton we came in above the upper, ideas on acres and, the market was down some. It was down 119 points, on the close. But, you know, it wasn’t a, you know, a huge move in the market. And maybe the market’s dismissing, the 10.12 million acre numbers.

00;05;48;15 – 00;05;56;21
Scott Stiles
But, that’s what we got. And, and, and that’s what we’ll have to incorporate into the July WASDE.

00;05;56;21 – 00;06;05;03
Dr. Hunter Biram
And Scott, if I’m, if I’m reading this right, last year we had almost 11.2 million acres. And now we’re looking at about 10.1, and we’re down 1.1 million acres year over year.

00;06;05;05 – 00;06;26;15
Scott Stiles
Right, right. And of course, that’s, you know, the story there. I mean, that’s a reflection of the price. You know, you go back to spring in 2024, you know, we had some opportunities to market some and, you know, some cotton in the $0.80 area early on. And, you know, today we’ve, you know, we’ve pretty much stayed in a range between 65 and 70.

00;06;26;15 – 00;06;52;03
Scott Stiles
So it’s a lot more bearish, you know market outlook today than, than it was, you know, a year ago rice, actually, the bottom, the bottom end of acreage expectations on just total U.S. rice was 2.7 million acres. NASS came up with 2.68. So a little bit, you know, a little bit below….

00;06;52;03 – 00;06;56;06
Dr. Hunter Biram
On the other end of it, right. Because we were above the max and now we’re below the min.

00;06;56;08 – 00;07;29;02
Scott Stiles
Yeah. That’s right. So, no real surprises there. You know, we knew that with the weather challenges that we had in the spring that, you know, rice acres would be down. And, so we were down. NASS’s June 30 number was down 211,000 from the March intentions. Most of that reduction came from Arkansas. When you look at long-grain and medium combined, Arkansas was down 200,000 acres from, from the March intentions.

00;07;29;05 – 00;07;36;03
Scott Stiles
So, we lost 180,000 in long-grain, and we’re down about 20,000 on medium, so.

00;07;36;03 – 00;07;39;08
Dr. Hunter Biram
Is Arkansas driving that reduction?

00;07;39;11 – 00;08;11;02
Scott Stiles
Yep. And we did see, you know, some reduction too and, we’re down 20,000 acres in Mississippi and 20,000 in Missouri. So again, you know, it was you know, it was weather challenges getting planted on both sides of the river here in the in the Delta area. Louisiana was up 10,000, but right here in the Mid-South, we did… we didn’t get all of the rice acres planted that we intended to, but, you know, the odd thing was that

00;08;11;05 – 00;08;39;13
Scott Stiles
okay, well, the, you know, the rice acres are lower. I think they, you know, we’re a little bit lower than the trade was looking for, but, we get a lot of data. On June 30th we got, not only the acreage, but we got the rice stocks and the grain, you know, the grain stocks, the quarterly stocks reports and that may be the reason that, you know, rice closed lower yesterday.

00;08;39;13 – 00;08;55;13
Scott Stiles
Rice, new crop rice, was down 15, 15 and a half on the close on, what I thought was a fairly good acreage number. So I think it’s looking at something else and probably the rice stock, the quarterly stocks number.

00;08;55;16 – 00;08;59;01
Dr. Hunter Biram
And that’s because we just have, what, more carryover then we thought?

00;08;59;03 – 00;09;31;09
Scott Stiles
Yeah, there’s, I mean there’s some pretty glaring examples of growers holding a lot of rice if you look at one example that was in the report was, the Arkansas growers are holding 7.35 million hundredweight on farm, compared to 3 million a year ago. So that’s a 137% jump year on year. You know, this is from June 1 to June 1.

00;09;31;12 – 00;09;55;01
Scott Stiles
So what growers are holding on farm is up 137% from last year. That’s just in Arkansas. So growers were, you know, they’re either holding rice for, you know, price improvement or, you know, it could be a reflection of the milling issues. They think, you know, maybe storage and conditioning rice on farm, you know, may improve the quality some.

00;09;55;04 – 00;10;11;06
Scott Stiles
But I think more so that they’re, you know, just hoping that we’d see some recovery in prices. But, but what growers are holding on farm is up, you know, substantially from double, you know, more than double, you know, from where we were in ‘24.

00;10;11;08 – 00;10;27;25
Dr. Hunter Biram
That, that’s a big shift. And I mean, yeah, I mean 137% because most of the, I mean, I don’t know what percentage of farmers are going to be doing the marketing pool, but that seems to be kind of mainstream for farmers that are marketing rice, right? Just, you know, take it to a cooperative and, and put it in the pool.

00;10;27;27 – 00;10;48;09
Scott Stiles
Right. You know, it’s all in an effort to try to lower their drying cost and, you know, avoid, you know, paying storage, you know, paying commercial storage rates. But it is unusual to see farmers holding as much rice as of June 1st. That’s, that’s up a lot. You know, year on year. And looked at the rough rice stock saled on farm.

00;10;48;12 – 00;11;12;29
Scott Stiles
It’s the highest since, since 2019. You know, just looking historically and for some perspective, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s the highest in several years. And, and again, it’s a reflection of the fact that, you know, rice prices have been under been under pressure all year. And, growers are hoping for a recovery.

00;11;13;02 – 00;11;37;16
Dr. Hunter Biram
Well, and I’m not sure what the likelihood of that is, which is a good segue into, you know, so what? You know, so what do we what do we, how do we think about this and what are the implications, for marketing? I know that, you know, Ryan and I, we did the podcast a couple weeks ago and came with that newsletter talking about how really this is about the best, you know, at this point in the season, you know, all of the things cost.

00;11;37;16 – 00;11;58;08
Dr. Hunter Biram
I mean, this is about the best time to be to do any kind of seasonal marketing or pre harvest marketing, assuming no grain storage. So, you know, what about what if farmers do have storage? Because, you know, you just mentioned that we got a 137% increase in rice storage. And I don’t think that rice is totally exempt, when it comes to store.

00;11;58;08 – 00;12;04;23
Dr. Hunter Biram
So. So what? How should a farmer with storage maybe think about where we are right now?

00;12;04;26 – 00;12;31;13
Scott Stiles
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s a lot to weigh. And, you know, where the interest rates are, you know, one thing to think about is what is, you know, what is the cost of interest, you know, on stored grain? You know, is it, is it a better strategy to just liquidate the grain and maybe reown, reown the crop with call options?

00;12;31;13 – 00;12;55;22
Scott Stiles
It might be, you know, it might be a lower call strategy to look at and, and, so, you know, that may be an idea, Hunter, is, is, you know, to liquidate the inventory, you know, take the, the storage risk out of it and, and just reown the crop on paper. I, you know, that may be a cheaper alternative than holding the crop.

00;12;55;24 – 00;13;18;11
Dr. Hunter Biram
Well, that’s interesting. You know, one thing you know, I’ve also talked about is it’s just really hard to manage price risk when you’re kind of operating at a downside risk or like a downside price environment already. It’s really hard to lock in those higher prices that could be more profitable and could be, you know, what we’ve been talking about more so, is break even when you’re already in that low price environment.

00;13;18;11 – 00;13;40;22
Dr. Hunter Biram
So, I mean, this is just a hard time. I mean, in every week whenever we come together and we’ve had these episodes, I mean, it’s it’s just a really hard ag economy to operate within. And, I mean, there’s not a whole lot farmers can do. I mean, like we said, this is probably the best time in that pre harvest, window to be therefore contracting and booking.

00;13;40;25 – 00;14;02;20
Dr. Hunter Biram
You know, there might be upside potential once we get out of the harvest glut. You know, in those winter months, you know, getting into December, January, February, March, if, if you have storage, but not everybody has storage, and, I don’t I’m not sure what that number is. I think maybe at some point we’ve talked maybe half, maybe half do storage and do marketing in the off season.

00;14;02;22 – 00;14;10;09
Dr. Hunter Biram
But not everybody does. And so it’s just a, it’s a hard, hard price environment to, to, to navigate.

00;14;10;11 – 00;14;46;13
Scott Stiles
Yeah. We emphasize importance of doing, you know, making some marketing decisions in the first half of the year. You know, mid-June to mid-July as kind of your last best chance to, you know, to make some sales in probably eight years out of ten. And, you know, that window of opportunity is closing. And, if you look forward, you know, at some of the longer term, you know, weather forecast, they’re saying, well, by mid-July, the, you know, the heat’s gonna, you know, this dome of heat that, you know, we kinda experienced last week is going to move north and west out to the West coast.

00;14;46;13 – 00;15;09;09
Scott Stiles
And, you know, you’re just going to have, you know, normal temperatures over the Midwest and mid-July and, like, you know, adequate moisture. So there’s nothing really on the rise in the day that says, you know, there’s going to be some weather premium put back into the market and the crop looks good. I saw the, corn was rated 73% good to excellent yesterday.

00;15;09;11 – 00;15;28;28
Scott Stiles
That’s pretty strong. You know, the bean rating wasn’t that high. It was like 66%. But that’s you know, that’s still pretty good. And the crop was planted early. So, you know, the corn is going to be in pollination by mid-July on the bulk of the acres. And it’s not going to be under any, you know, intense heat stress.

00;15;29;00 – 00;15;49;12
Scott Stiles
So, you know, if you’re looking for a fundamental reason, you know, weather reason for the market to perk up, it’s really not there today. You know, we may, you know, there’s still some time out there that the bean, you know, the bean crop can undergo some stress. But corn, oh, gosh, you know the outlook looks really good today for it.

00;15;49;14 – 00;15;50;27
Scott Stiles
Yeah.

00;15;50;29 – 00;16;07;27
Dr. Hunter Biram
Right. Well, Scott, unless there any other comments, I want to say thanks so much for your time and, just for all the wonderful work that you do and, thanks for coming in today to talk about the June acreage report. And, with that, we’ll sign off.

00;16;07;29 – 00;16;09;03
Scott Stiles
Great talking to you, Hunter.

Dr. Hunter Biram
Thanks, Scott. Stay tuned for the market report. Thanks. How’s it going, everyone? Here with your market report. September 2025 corn futures coming in at $4.18 as of July 2nd. A month ago, they were at $4.21 per bushel. That’s down, $0.03 month over month. And that is actually up $0.12 from a year ago. September 2025 rice futures, rough rice futures, coming in at $12.96 per hundredweight.

00;16;39;02 – 00;17;11;11
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s down from $13.57 per hundredweight a month ago. That’s down, $0.61 from a month ago and down from $14.99 from a year ago, looking at down $2.03 from a year ago. November 2025 soybeans coming in at $10.48 per bushel. That is actually up $0.31 from a month ago, and that is down $0.74 from a year ago.

00;17;11;13 – 00;17;39;21
Dr. Hunter Biram
Or maybe that’s $0.64. It’s, it’s down. That’s all you gotta know. It’s down from a year ago, from $11.22. December 2025, December 2025 cotton is, coming in at 68.63 cents per pound. That is going to be pretty much the same as a month ago, which was 68.69 cents, and down from a year ago, which was 72.36 cents per pound. Wheat coming in at $5.56, per bushel.

00;17;39;21 – 00;18;02;23
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s July wheat that’s going to be up from a month ago, which was at $5.39. So that’s going to be up 16… or $0.17 for a month ago. And a year ago, pretty much the same, which was at $5.55 per bushel a year ago. Peanuts, the U.S. weekly average coming from the National Agricultural Statistics Service of USDA, $530 a ton on the week versus a month ago, we were at $490 a ton.

00;18;02;23 – 00;18;23;27
Dr. Hunter Biram
So that’s up $40 per ton from a month ago. And that’s about the same as a year ago, which was $532 per ton. The Mississippi River level in Memphis, current reading at 12.65ft a year ago. That’s up from a year ago, which was at 7.11ft. Looking at your Arkansas highway diesel, current price around $3.36 per gallon.

00;18;24;00 – 00;18;45;22
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s up $0.21 or $0.19 for a month ago, which is $3.17 per gallon. And that’s, down from a year ago, which was at $3.52 per gallon. Arkansas farm diesel, looking at a tanker load of about 7000 gallons. Your current, price per gallon is $2.62. That’s up $0.32 for a month ago, which was $2.30.

00;18;45;22 – 00;19;18;24
Dr. Hunter Biram
And that is down from a year ago, $2.88. So down about $0.26 from a year ago looking, moving into the, fertilizer prices. Urea, looking at about $580 a ton. That’s going to be the same as a month ago, which is $580 and, up a little bit from three months ago, which was $555 per ton. Ammonium nitrate, looking at $467, the same as a month ago and up from three months ago, which was at $381 per ton. Ammonium sulfate coming in at $555 per ton.

00;19;18;27 – 00;19;41;09
Dr. Hunter Biram
That’s going to be down from a month ago, $560 per ton, and up $25 per ton from three months ago. DAP coming in at $838 per ton. That’s going to be up $12 a ton from $826 a month ago. And from three months ago, it’s going to be up from $772. So that’s going to be up $66, a ton,

00;19;41;09 – 00;20;02;24
Dr. Hunter Biram
wow, from three months ago. Triple super phosphate coming in at $688 per ton. That’s going to be up from $656 a ton a month ago. Three months ago was $615, so we’re up from three months ago. Potash, last but not least, coming in at $457 per ton, and that’s the same as a month ago. And it’s up about $19 per ton from three months ago.

00;20;02;24 – 00;20;31;11
Dr. Hunter Biram
That is your market report. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Morning Coffee and Ag Markets. We hope that you found this information very helpful. And, please email us, call us with comments if there’s a topic that you want to hear about, let us know. And, with that, I’ll sign off. Thanks.