The US Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for corn production in the US in the 2020-21 marketing year (September-August) to 15 billion bushels (381.02 million mt) from a 15.995 billion bushels estimate a month earlier, according to the agency's July World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.
The agency's year-ending stocks estimate for 2020-21 was lowered to 2.648 billion bushels from 3.323 billion bushels in its June WASDE report.
The year-ending stocks forecast was lower than the average market expectations of 2.688 billion bushels.
Beginning stocks for the 2020-21 marketing year were predicted by USDA to be 2.248 billion bushels, higher than its previous estimate of 2.103 billion bushels.
USDA also lowered its US corn acreage estimate for 2020-21 to 92 million acres from 97 million acres in the last WASDE report, but it was similar to the estimate in USDA's June acreage survey.
The harvested area under corn prediction was cut to 84 million acres from 89.6 million acres previously.
The yield projection for 2020-21 US corn held at 178.5 bushels/acre.
According to Pete Meyer, head of grains and oilseed analytics at S&P Global Platts Analytics, USDA will take the precipitation in July into consideration, so most likely the agency will update its yield forecast in August.
The agency's forecast for total corn supplies in the US in 2020-21 was cut to 17.273 billion bushels from 18.123 billion bushels previously, it said.
For 2020-21, the USDA estimate for corn used for ethanol in the US held steady at 5.2 billion bushels, while its 2019-20 prediction was cut to 4.85 billion bushels from 4.9 billion bushels.
US corn exports are still expected to total 2.15 billion bushels.
The agency's forecast for the season average farm price for US corn in 2020-21 was raised to $3.35/bushel from the $3.20/bushel June estimate, which was the lowest since 2006-07.
For 2019-20, the estimate for demand for corn for feed and residual use in the US was lowered to 5.6 billion bushels from a 5.7 billion bushels estimate in June, which resulted in higher beginning stocks for 2020-21.
The USDA maintained its estimate for corn production in the US in 2019-20 at 13.617 billion bushels.
The USDA also kept its estimate for US corn exports in 2019-20 unchanged at 1.775 billion bushels.
The agency's estimates for corn acreage and harvested acres in 2019-20 were kept unchanged at 89.7 million acres and 81.3 million acres, respectively.
The estimated yield for US corn in 2019-20 also held steady at 167.40 bu/acre.
