The beginning of spring depends on the viewer's perspective. Meteorologists use March 1 as the starting point, while astronomers use the vernal equinox as their reference point. This year, it happened on the night of March 19 in the US.

For the food market, every year the season begins at the end of the month, when the US Department of Agriculture reports planting intentions and quarterly grain inventory reports. It will be released on March 28 this year. This double data release is the USDA's most important event since January, setting the tone for farmers' old crops and new crops of corn and soybeans as they go to the fields. Either or both of these reports could affect prices, although history warns producers to prepare for lower prices. And this year, traders only had a few hours to react before the long Easter break.

According to the government's tracking records of spot grain prices in Iowa over the past 30 years, these two markets are trending differently. On the day after the report was published, corn rose 54% of the time, while soybeans fell 42% of the time. A week later, corn was still up 54% of the time, with an average increase of 19 cents in those years. Soybeans remained in decline for 45% of the year, with an average loss of 20 cents. However, these differences are far from large enough to be statistically significant, so they should be treated with caution — or rather, be skeptical.

inventory data

Quarterly grain stocks are usually detailed figures, and changes in quarterly inventories show how much has been consumed — what economists call “disappearance.” Relatively large supplies this year are likely to lessen the impact of these reports, especially as the weather in South America is still making news.

Furthermore, based on previous reports from exporters and processors, most of the data on inventory inflows is relatively well known. The change in corn usage comes from how much is fed to livestock. This is a figure that the USDA does not directly calculate, but is inferred from losses that have never been attributed to processors.

Pressing and exporting absorb most of the demand for soybeans, and only a small amount is used for food and seeds. The wobble factor is a piece of data called residual usage, which the USDA uses to adjust previous reports. In some quarters, this number may even be negative, making inventory more difficult for analysts to estimate. If it's negative this time, it's probably just a mistake, but it could also be an indication that the 2023 crop will be larger than the January report, although any changes will not be officially confirmed until the September inventory report.

In any case, usage in the December-February quarter almost certainly meant that there were more soybeans on hand on March 1 than in 2023, totaling around 1.8 billion or more.

Corn stocks are likely to be around 8.4 billion bushels, the highest since the 2018-2019 sales year. The total amount of corn feed includes its own residual components, and the USDA has also begun updating production estimates for this crop to address this situation.

Area issues

The market is paying close attention to the results of the USDA's first survey of farmers' spring planting plans. The estimates previously released in November and updated at the February outlook conference are strictly based on economic models rather than actual input from farmers. These estimates set the area under corn cultivation at 91 million acres, down from 94.6 million acres in 2024, while soybeans rose from 83.6 million acres a year ago to 87.5 million acres. The latest Farm Futures survey was released on Friday, showing 92.4 million acres of corn and 86 million acres of soybeans — enough to produce a large crop if production is normal.

(The above analysis is from Bryce Knorr, Senior Grain Market Analyst at Farm Futures)