Record corn plantings triggered weekend price fall for both corn and wheat following the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s acreage report of June 28, 2024.
The report showed that American corn acreage will reach 91.5 million acres, 1.464 million acres above that of the March 2024 forecast.
Immediately after the announcement, related grain futures including wheat fell on both sides of the Atlantic. The wheat contract price dipped by 1.4% to 224 euros ($240.91) a tonne on Euronext in Paris, June 28.
In Chicago, corn shed 4%, to a best of $4.053.4 a bushel and a low of $3.991/2 a bushel. Wheat in its part lost by 1.3% to settle at a contract best of $5.72 per bushel.
Corn Plantings, Stocks to Cause Monthly Price Losses
American companies with large corn acreage now foresee price cuts of between 10 and 161/2 cents a bushel through 2025.
Contracts for corn deliveries for September 2024 have already lost at least 33 cents and this could reach 461/2 later.
As of June 28, July 2024 corn deliveries had shrunk to $3.971/4, even as September deliveries touched $4.071/2 a bushel. December deliveries were at the lowest rate of $3.84 a bushel.
Another cause of the monthly price meltdown is a corn stock increase to 4.993 billion bushels by June 1, 2024. This exceeds the 890 million bushels of June 1, 2023 and echoes the upper range expectation of 5.013 billion bushels.
In comparison, the February 2024 carryover stocks of corn from 2023 had stood at 60%, meaning sufficient 2024 supplies.
Outlook Ahead for European Wheat
Further afield, FranceAgriMer expects a good-to-excellent winter soft wheat output with a 60% rating, down from 62%. This means that if the ratings go lower than they are now, prices could improve at least in Europe.
The European Commission on June 27 hiked the bloc’s wheat production for the 2024-25 season to 121.9 million tonnes. This is 1.7 million tonnes more than the May forecast, with extra plantings whetting the production rise.
All the same, the above estimate is still a 48-month low, which means that the bloc will need extra wheat.
Across the Atlantic, USDA predicts U.S.’ all-wheat plantings to dip to 47.2 million acres, while the 2023-24 tally was 5% more. This could have a rallying effect on prices if other top producers also lose out on acreage.
In short, rising American corn plantings per the latest USDA report is having a negative price effect on related grains. And as the statistics below reveal, global grain acreage has always had a big market effect.
Global Corn and Wheat Grain Acreage Statistics
The world produced 1.2 billion tonnes of corn in 2022, of which 1/3 came from the U.S. China topped acreage at 43.1 million hectares, while the U.S. came second at 32.2 million hectares. Brazil, India, Argentina, Mexico and Nigeria ranked in the top 7 at 21.1, 9.958, 8.768, 6.778 and 5.8 million hectares respectively. Wheat acreage had a worldwide acreage total of 219.15 million hectares, above that of maize at 203.47 million hectares.
Which country consumes the most corn?
The U.S. led corn consumption in 2022 at 12.4 million bushels, mostly as animal feed, ethanol, and syrup. The world as a whole consumed 45 billion bushels in 2022.
Which countries produce most corn and wheat in the world?
The United States topped global output of corn in the 2023-24 year at 389,694,000 tonnes. In the second to fifth place respectively were China, Brazil, the European Union and Argentina. Regarding wheat, China led 2020 production at 134.3 million tonnes, before the European Union, India, Russia and the United States.