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Rabo AgriFinance sees 10 year pressure on crop prices

Rabo AgriFinance predicts corn, soybean and wheat prices to stay pressured over the next 10 years, assuming normal weather.

The lead author of their baseline outlook is Steve Nicholson who tells Brownfield Ag News, “Looking forward is not necessarily always a happy place.”

In the case of soybeans, he tells Brownfield their models assumed African Swine fever and the U.S./China trade war would remain, “Let’s say by magic and assume them away you potentially could see prices at the farm gate, anything from about 2 to 2-dollars-and-50-cents a bushel higher if those two market factors were gone away.”

For wheat and corn, the China trade war and ASF are not factors but oversupply is. There’s a bright spot for corn as their outlook sees animal feed overtaking ethanol for demand by 2026.

“Your local market may be your best market. That cattle feeder or that hog producer in the next county over, that may be your best market and maybe that’s the market you need to cultivate.”

A major supply shock like another severe weather year, Nicholson says, could cause large price and acre reactions but those would likely last only a year or two.