Kansas Wheat Blog

Wheat Exports are Double Last Years Pace

There is some good news in the wheat export market.

• As of September 23, U.S. exports of all classes of wheat for the 2010/11 marketing year (June 1 – May 31) were at 17 million metric tons. 
•  8.1 MMT of that total has been Hard Red Winter wheat.
• This is nearly double the pace of this same time last year and almost identical to total HRW exports for market year 2009/10.
• USDA forecasts 2010/11 all wheat exports to reach 34 MMT, so in theory, a lot of wheat will move between now and May.

So assuming HRW exports account for about 50% of the remaining 17 million tons to be exported, that's roughly 8 MMT (293 million bushels) of HRW exports for the remainder of the market year. That's a U.S. number of course, and not all of that will come from Kansas, but a good share will.

Ag Statistics also made some revisions to the recently harvested 2010 crop.

• Kansas wheat production for 2010 is estimated at 360.0 million bushels, down 2 percent from the August forecast of 369.0 million bushels and down 3 percent from 2009.
• Yield is estimated at 45 bushels per acre, unchanged from the August forecast but 3 bushels above last year. This is the highest yield since 2003 and the fifth highest on record.
• Acres harvested for grain totaled 8.0 million, down 2 percent from the previous forecast and down 9 percent from 2009.
• A total of 8.4 million acres were planted to wheat in the fall of 2009, down 2 percent from the June acreage report and 10 percent below last year. These are the lowest planted and harvested acreages since 1957.

Grain storage space in Kansas is tight. Let's do some math.

+ 400.5 million bushels of wheat in commercial storage.

+ Add 58 million bushels of old crop corn, 19 of old crop sorghum and 3.6 of soybeans.

+ Then, add new crop projections of 607 million bushels of corn, 180 million of sorghum, and 146 million of soybeans.

+ That represents 1.4 billion bushels of commodities looking for storage in Kansas.

+ Current total storage capacity (farm and commercial) in Kansas is 1.28 billion bushels.

That indicates a storage and handling infrastructure that is maxed out. This is most likely going to be the norm in future years rather than the exception.

Add Your comment