Early Summer Reports Confirm Trends

By Chad Hart

Given the trade policy uncertainty over the past few months, agricultural market participants had been keying on the estimates from the June World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report to provide some clarity on USDA’s perspectives on agricultural supplies and usage for the year ahead. USDA’s projections showed little impact from the tariff changes in May and that continued with the update in June. However, the markets are still experiencing significant shifts year-over-year and the crop markets will see more changes in the future with the release of the biofuel targets for 2026 and 2027 from EPA, which occurred after the release of the WASDE. The general storylines remain the same. Beef production is smaller and prices are high, pork production continues to grow, and crop prices remain stubbornly lower.

For livestock, the 2025 marketing year is mainly a continuation of the patterns from 2024. Beef production declined as the cattle herd continues to shrink. Turkey production is still feeling the impacts from high pathogenic avian influenza and avian metapneumovirus (see Crespi and Pudenz 2025 for a recent CARD Policy Brief). Meanwhile, pork and broiler production are growing larger. Overall meat production has remained in the 107 billion pound range for the past couple of years and looks to remain there next year. For 2026, USDA projects growth in pork, broiler, and turkey production. But the big question is beef, as the projected rebound in the cattle herd has not yet come to pass. Last year, USDA thought the rebound would happen in 2025, which would have led to a deeper reduction in beef supplies. Now, that rebound and the resulting drop in beef production is delayed to 2026. US meat exports have fallen once again in 2025, with all of the meats seeing fewer international sales. Beef exports are projected to continue that slide, whereas the other meats are projected to slightly recapture some of those lost sales (table 1).

Meat prices have been on rise for all species. Cattle prices continue to push through record levels. Hog prices have improved over the past year. Broiler prices are steadily increasing. And turkey prices have recovered from the lows of 2024. USDA’s outlook for 2026 shows a continuation of higher prices for beef, broilers, and turkey as domestic demand remains robust. However, pork prices are expected to retreat with continued record production.

On the crop side, the June WASDE report did not shift current projections much, but the year-to-year changes are still substantial. In March, farmers indicated they would plant 95.3 million acres to corn in 2025—a nearly 5 million acre increase from 2024 and the highest corn area in over a decade (table 2). Given a trendline yield of 181 bushels per acre, that acreage translates to expected production of 15.82 billion bushels, nearly one billion bushels more than last year’s crop and almost 500 million bushels higher than the record production from 2023. So once again, corn supplies will be large. Corn usage is also setting records. Throughout the entire 2024 marketing year, USDA has been adjusting corn usage higher. For the first time in history, annual total US corn use has exceeded 15 billion bushels. Corn feed use has remained resilient despite the decline in cattle numbers. Corn usage for ethanol over the past year has reached record levels, but the biggest boost has come from the export markets, despite the tariff turmoil. Starting just before harvest last fall, corn export pace jumped higher and has maintained a very strong pace throughout the winter and spring. In fact, the only adjustment USDA made to the corn outlook in June was to add another 50 million bushels to 2024 corn exports, bringing the total up to 2.65 billion bushels. Only in 2020 were export sales higher, with sales totaling 2.75 billion bushels. Yet even with this surge in corn usage, corn prices remain low with USDA’s 2024 season-average price holding at $4.35 per bushel. Projected corn usage for 2025 shows continued growth, but the pace is not fast enough to match the expansion in supply. Feed and residual corn usage is projected to increase by 150 million bushels. Corn exports are seen gaining another 25 million bushels, but again that growth will depend on some resolution for trade policies. Thus, the 2025 corn crop is projected to set records for production and usage, but since the production record exceeds the usage record, corn prices are projected to fall. The 2025 season-average price projection is $4.20 per bushel.

The large shift in acreage to corn mostly came from soybeans. Farmers indicated they would plant 3.6 million less acres to soybeans this year (table 3). Yet, despite the drop in area, soybean production is projected to hold steady at roughly 4.35 billion bushels. So unlike with corn, we are not dealing with another wave of record soybean production, but that has not led to much price improvement. Soybean usage has been building over the past year. Soybean crush has increased on the strength of the renewable diesel surge over the past couple of years. Soybean exports have grown by over 10% during the 2024 marketing year. These shifts have put soybean usage levels roughly in line with US soybean production. And USDA’s outlook for 2025 soybean usage maintains that balance, as they see crush growing slightly, while exports retreat a bit. For the 2025 marketing year, USDA has their season-average price projection at $10.25 per bushel, a 30-cent improvement compared to 2024. However, USDA’s projection was released before EPA’s recent announcement for the 2026 and 2027 renewable fuel standard levels. Given the substantial increase for biomass-based diesel in the RFS, USDA will likely need to boost the crush number more in the coming months, tightening stocks and lifting prices.

In general, the ag economic picture in 2025 is similar to what we experienced in 2024. While livestock prices have risen, so have livestock costs, offsetting the gains. Crop prices remain depressed, as supplies are ample and usage is trying to catch up. Thus, agricultural market returns will remain lower than what producers had hoped.

References

Crespi, J.M., and C.C. Pudenz. 2025. "Possible Economic Impacts from aMPV and HPAI in the Iowa Turkey Industry." Policy brief 25-PB 47. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University. https://www.card.iastate.edu/products/publications/synopsis/?p=1408.
 

Suggested citation

Hart, C. 2025. “Early Summer Reports Confirm Trends.” Agricultural Policy Review, Spring 2025. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University. https://agpolicyreview.card.iastate.edu/spring-2025/early-summer-reports-confirm-trends.