Census Revises 2001 Crush Upward

The U.S. Census Bureau surprised the soybean trade Friday morning by revising the calendar 2001 soybean crush upward by 4.7%. That revision indicates USDA will have to make shifts in its 2001-2002 supply/demand data, but it shouldn't mean a big change in ending stocks figures.

The Census Bureau revised crush figures for all months of 2001, raising the total crush by 78.4 million bushels to about 1.737 billion bushels.

If USDA were to make similar changes to its usage figures, it would likely have to raise the 2001-2002 crush by about 25 million bushels to 1.730 billion, as well as revise the 2000-2001 crush higher.

That does not mean that USDA will make similar big cuts in its ending stocks estimates. Most likely, USDA will offset most of the increase in the crush with cuts to its residual use estimates.

USDA has been carrying above-average residual use of 92 million bushels on its 2001-2002 supply/demand balance sheet.

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau pegged the June 2002 crush at 134.75 million bushels, down a little over 6 million bushels from a month earlier and up only about 70,000 bushels from the revised year-earlier figure.

Editors note: Richard Brock, Soybean Digest's Marketing Editor, is president of Brock Associates, a farm market advisory firm, and publisher of The Brock Report.

To see more market perspectives, visit Brock's Web site at www.brockreport.com.