Soybean and corn prices have skyrocketed amid lower planting expectations in the United States

For its part, maize grew 4.63% (US $ 9.84) to stand at US $ 222.14 per tonne, given that the USDA has declared both stocks and an intention to plant the cereal lower than expected by the market. Finally, wheat increased 2.70% (US $ 5.97) to US $ 227.08 per tonne, due to a “contagion effect” on corn and soybeans, data published in the USDA report being bearish.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates for Wednesday’s corn and soybean plantings fell short of analysts’ expectations, which caused a sharp rise in the prices of the futures contracts of the two commodities.

Farmers plan to plant 91.144 million acres with corn this year, the most since 2016, and 87.6 billion acres with soybeans, the highest figure since 2018, in the first official forecast based on an agency’s survey for the U.S. growth zone in 2021.

Instead, analysts expected the report to show that farmers planned to plant 93.208 million acres of corn and 89.996 million acres of soybeans., according to the average of estimates collected in a Reuters poll.

This is not the case with wheat plantings that exceeded expectations at 46.358 million acres, compared to operators’ estimate of 44.971 million acres.

In another report, USDA says soybean stocks as of March 1 have fallen to their lowest level in five years, while corn prices fell to the lowest level in seven years.

Soybean stocks on and off-plantations were estimated at 1.564 million bushels as of March 1, up from 2.255 million during the same period last year, according to the Quarterly Grain Stocks Report, which surveyed about 8,400 commercial facilities and about 80,000 farmers.

Corn stocks stood at 7.701 million bushels, up from 7.952 million a year earlier. Analysts polled before the report expected soybean stocks to average 1.534 million bushels and corn to 7.767 million bushels.