October 1, 2007

USDA: Largest ever stored soy stocks for September report

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said Friday (September 28) that the 572.778 million bushels of soy stocks stored on- and off-farms in the US is the largest ever for a September report and a 27 percent increase from a year ago.

The USDA issues its Grain Stocks report quarterly and in June made a similar claim for the time, saying that the then-level of storage of 1.091 billion bushels of soy was "the largest June 1 stocks on record."

The September 1 level of soy stocks stored off-farm, according to the latest report released Friday, totalled 429.778 million bushels, a 57 percent increase from a year ago. The 143 million bushels stored on-farm is a 19 percent decrease from September 1, 2006, though.

From June through August 2007, 519 million bushels of US soy left storage, USDA said and that was a 4 percent decline compared to usage in the same time period a year ago.

Corn stocks as of September 1, though, were down substantially from a year ago. The 1.304 billion bushels of corn stored on- and off-farms was a 34 percent decrease from the 1.967 billion bushels in storage a year ago.

The Sept. 1 level of corn stocks stored off-farm, according to the USDA report, totalled 843.66 million bushels, 31 percent less than a year ago. The 460.1 million bushels stored on-farm is a 39 percent decrease from a year ago.

The USDA also reported Friday that US wheat storage, as of September 1, was down 2 percent from last year's September Grain Stocks report.

Wheat stocks stored on- and off-farms was 1.717 billion bushels, down from 1.75 billion a year ago. Off-farm storage was 1.222 billion bushels, up from 1.179 billion a year ago, and on-farm storage was 495 million bushels, down from 572.02 million a year ago.