Death comes to us all. Life's but a walking shadow | We export some 40% of our beans but less than 15% of our corn. Furthermore, given the South American crop comes on the market in March our bean export market is compressed into the first half of our market year. So the better part of our beans destine for export plus half the beans used domestically are marketed before March 1st. In fact your chart shows a very pronounced trend for lower on-farm bean stocks since 2007 in line with the rise in South American bean production & export.
The increase in on-farm corn stocks can probably be explained by the rise of the ethanol trade and the driving season. A good deal of ethanol production occurs during the spring & summer which requires corn to be stored until then. I think if I remember correctly much of the new storage capacity built in the past few years has been built on-farm as well. |
March on-farm corn and soybean stocks (chart)
