Ag Exports End Year Better than Expected

The ag export year wrapped up on September 30^th and the USDA is releasing the final numbers for the year, and they turned much better than forecasted by about $1 billion, and $10 billion better than last year.

Trade analyst Bryce Cooke said the U.S. exported about $140.5 billion worth of ag products this year.

“Wheat was up 21 percent in value terms, soybeans were up 17 percent and corn was up six percent.”

Cotton was up 70 percent.

Cooke said there are a couple of reasons why the U.S. did better than expected.

“The dollar is still generally weak and you have had pretty decent income growth in developing countries. Those are a growing percent of where U.S. goods are sold.”

Cooke also noted that the U.S. had a lot of high quality products that were desired by those growing markets.