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Hubbs: China is the number one soybean pricing issue

Agriculture economist Todd Hubbs says projected 2019 soybean acreage will overshoot what’s needed by more than 10 million acres. A recent planted acreage projection was a little less than 86 million acres. Hubbs, at the University of Illinois, says about 75 million acres will produce the soybeans necessary, depending on production issues and how much demand comes from China.

“That trade deal has a huge amount of uncertainty and could change our consumption quite a bit,” Hubbs told Brownfield Ag News Friday.

There are additional factors that would result in more acres of soybeans being needed, said Hubbs.

“If we had a bad crop in South America, which I’m always for a bad crop in South America, and we really picked up in our consumption, that number would go up significantly,” said Hubbs.

At the moment, there is no other pricing issue bigger than getting more trade with China, according to Hubbs.

“We may see exports go up a little bit from this year, but we’re going to have plenty of beans in the world,” he said, “so for us here in the U.S., I think [China trade is] issue number one for soybean prices.”

With Hubbs’ production and use projections, he estimates the price of soybeans in the coming year to be about $8.40.