February 2, 2004

US 2003 Soybean Crop Reduced
 

The 2003 US Soybean crop was even smaller than previously reported. According to the "final" Crop Production report, soybean production in 2003 totaled 2.42 billion bushels, down 330 million bushels from the 2002 crop, and 36 million less than the previous estimate.

The soybean market was already extremely tight and this production revision did little to ease the tightness. To accommodate the smaller crop, USDA cut the 2003-04 crush by 30 million bushels, to 1.455 billion bushels. This would be down 160 million bushels from a year earlier.

The monthly crush data indicates that crush is running at almost identical levels to last year. USDA raised the forecast for soybean exports by 10 million bushels, to 900 million, which is down 145 million from last year. However, through the end of last year, export sales are still 63 million bushels above year earlier levels. The market will continue to be very sensitive to any production related news from South America.