February soybean crush lightly below expectations.

USDA reported a 193.9 million bushel domestic soybean crush in February. That was just under the 196.4 trade expectation.

This is still a very strong run and 9.6% above last year. This was a record run for any prior February (fully expected). The US has now crushed 1.169 billion bushels over the first half of the 2023/24 marketing year, +5.4% year/year. That is over the +4.0% expectation shown by USDA's current 2.300 estimate. The remainder of the year only needs to run +2.5% to meet USDA.

If the remainder of the year runs +6% to +8% we'll exceed USDA's goal by 38 to 60 million bushels. This is a needed partial offset to the export problem.

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