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FAPRI director sees some price recovery next year

The director of the Food & Agriculture Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri says corn, soybean and wheat prices could see some recovery in the 2017 marketing year.

“We would expect to see a little bit of price recovery relative to the very low prices we have today, especially for corn and for wheat,” says Pat Westhoff. “So a little bit less supply could tighten the supply-demand balance a little. But that’s contingent on us not having the kind of record yields we’ve had in the past year.”

Westhoff says he’s not talking about big price increases.

“Corn prices in the $3.60 range, for example—and we’re talking about wheat prices in the low four dollar range,” he says. “Yes, that’s higher than we have today, but it’s not the kind of levels that many farmers need to break even.”

As for soybeans, Westhoff says, “We’ve seen prices in the high nine dollar range right now on the future markets. We’re projecting a little less than that for the season average price this year—and for the 2017 crop, about the same.”

Westhoff discussed his 2017 price outlook at this week’s ag bankers’ conference in Indianapolis.