Long-awaited data updates were released by USDA today. Due to the government shutdown, today’s releases include the first updates to crop production, and supply and demand estimates since the mid-September reports two months ago.
While weekly export sales will be slowly trickled out over the next seven weeks, USDA published all of the daily export sales announcements for the October 2 through November 12, 2025 period today, offering a glimpse into what we may expect as the full picture comes together.
These new data pieces offer more clarity for where USDA is currently, but leave us wanting to know more. Here’s a run-down of what we know and what gaps persist while we wait on remaining data catch-up and normal procedures to resume.
Did USDA Have All the Normal Data Needed to Make New Projections?
Information gaps wouldn’t be surprising given the government shutdown, but data and methodology notes included on the November USDA reports indicate production-related data was being collected during the shutdown. A note in the November WASDE report indicates some U.S. data sources typically used were not available due to the shutdown. Given the NASS Crop Production Report indicates data collection continued during the shutdown, that doesn’t appear to be among the data unavailable.
The Crop Production Report methodology states objective yield and farm operator surveys were conducted between October 25 and November 9. Approximately 6,690 producers were interviewed during the survey period and asked questions about probable yield, more than the number of producers interviewed during the corresponding survey period for the November 2024 report. No specific references or statistics are provided for farm operator surveys collected in the normal range ahead of the October release, but other notes indicate a survey was completed at that time.
The report methodology states objective yield evaluation began in September, and plots were visited each month until crop maturity when harvested and weighed, indicating October objective yield data was collected during the shutdown period.
It appears USDA had the same crop production information for the November 2025 report that would be available in other years.
Corn Production Lower, Corn Supplies Higher
While analysts widely expected U.S. corn yield to be lowered, the new 186.0 bushel per acre projection is a fractional change from the 186.7 bushel per acre September projection, not dropping as far as pre-report industry expectations. Despite being revised downward, 186.0 bushels per acre would still top last year’s record yield by 6.7 bushels per acre.
The yield change resulted in a 62 million bushel drop in production to 16.75 billion bushels but changes to the 2024/25 balance sheet raised 2025/26 beginning stocks by 207 million bushels, resulting in higher corn supplies for the current year.
Big Export Sales Support Larger Corn Exports
As the market eagerly awaited supply updates, a new swath of export pace indicators also went live to inform the distribution side of the balance sheet. While most eyes went straight to any soybean sales destined for China after White House’s recent announcement of ambitious purchase commitments, the (albeit unsurprising) bright point of the update was very strong corn volumes. The accumulated flash announcements represented 4.4 million metric tons (172 million bushels) of corn sales to Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and unknown destinations for MY 25/26 since the last release.
Though the market already had a good idea of this quick pace with record implied exports in September and October and corn inspections up a whopping 65.7 percent on the year through November 6, the release of this information indicates that new sales are still continuing with vigor. This strong showing led USDA to revise their export line higher by 100 million bushels, totaling 3.1 billion bushels and strengthening the record forecast.
Farm Price Higher, Still-Below Break Even
Corn prices have trended upward since the beginning of the 2025/26 marketing year on September 1, providing support for an increase in the projected 2025/26 market-year average farm price from $3.90 per bushel to $4.00 per bushel.
The yield adjustment leaves farmers with fewer bushels per acre, on average, to sell. The higher average price more than offsets the reduction in yield, raising average gross corn sales by $15.87 to $744.00 per acre. While a movement in the right direction, this is still well below the $897.44 per acre average cost of production, pushing average net losses to $153.44 per acre for corn.
Future Implications
Today’s report lacked major volume changes in supply or demand for the U.S. corn balance sheet, but given the market expectation for a notable drop in production, the small drop in production paired with increasing beginning stocks was disappointing. The market reacted sharply to today’s releases as the December corn futures contract dropped more than $0.11 per bushel, erasing positive momentum from the resistance-breaking gains the contract made this week. While the prospect for higher seasonal average farm price was a bright spot in today’s WASDE – a continued retraction in actual prices farmers can sell their corn for going forward pushes revenues further away from break-even levels.
Although USDA data has returned, uncertainty remains. Today’s releases offer fresh data to digest, but no doubt farmers and other market participants will continue to anticipate greater clarity as the backlog of data releases continues and additional data can be collected to work toward final production numbers.
