Soybean prices fell early morning on May 13 in Chicago despite news of flood devastation on unharvested soy fields in southern Brazil.
The benchmark soy price in Chicago sold at $12.153/4 a bushel, a 0.3% drop from the foregoing week ending May 10.
Prices began to slip on May 9 after consecutive May 6 and 7 gains. Then there was a slight rally of 0.87% on May 10, before today’s early fall.
Strong U.S.’ soy supplies and the floods in Brazil are both having a tug-and-pull effect on the price. While Brazil’s harvest delay is marginally rallying the price, strong supply in the U.S. is exerting a downward pull.
U.S. Supply Factor
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects a huge 2024-25 American soy harvest and with it a farm price slip.
The May 10 forecast echoes the January 2024 crop report which showed improvements in grain acreage and thereby cooled prices.
USDA’s soy supply glut projections for 2024 include carryover stocks from 2023. The U.S. exported $27.94 billion of soybeans in 2023, below the three-year average of $29.91 billion amid South American competition. This means the 2023 surplus will go into the 2024 inventory and hence put pressure on the farm gate price.
Brazil’s Flood Weighs in on Soybean Prices
In Brazil, torrential rains in the major soy-producing state of Rio Grande do Sul also factored in, albeit marginally.
76% of the soy harvest in the southern Brazil state was already over when floods submerged farms in mid-April. Northern states had already reaped 90% of their crop while the southern areas had averaged 60% when floods checked progress.
Analysts now predict Rio Grande do Sul may realize 19 million tonnes out of a capacity for 22.25 million tonnes.
USDA had predicted that Brazil would harvest a record soy crop in the 2023/24 season worth 163 million metric tonnes. This would have been 8 million tonnes more than that of the 2022-23 season of 155 million tonnes.
Were it not for the high production in the U.S., the Brazilian floods could have rallied the soy price. For now however, the weather factor only helps soybean prices from further slump but not a full comeback.