The July Feed Outlook report shows the 2026-27 U.S. feed grains production is raised slightly. On June 30, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released its annual Acreage report, providing the first revisions to planted acres for feed grains since March. The report also included the service's first harvested-area estimates for the new crops. Meanwhile, in its July 10 Crop Production report, NASS released its first estimates for 2026-27 barley and oat yields. Based on the newly released estimates, 2026-27 U.S. feed grains production is lifted marginally this month by 0.4 million metric tons (MT) (0.1%) to 420.1 million MT. The 2026-27 U.S. feed grains production forecast would be the second largest on record, 6% below last year but 4% bigger than the next largest (402.6 million MT in 2023). At 0.3 million MT, the increase to sorghum production accounts for most of the month-to-month increase. The increase to projected sorghum production follows from an increase of 185,000 acres (3.5%) to the projected harvested area. Corn and oats both see production increases of about 0.1 million MT from last month, while barley production is lowered by about 0.1 million MT.
Forecast domestic use in the 2025-26 corn marketing year is raised 125 million bushels in this month’s USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report. This increase is the net result of a 150 million-bushel increase to the feed and residual use forecast and a 25 million-bushel decrease to expected ethanol usage. The increased feed and residual expectation follows from the June 30 release of the NASS Grain Stocks report. The report estimated third-quarter ending stocks at 5.29 billion bushels, which yield an implied usage of 3.74 billion bushels for the quarter. This number sets a new all-time high for third-quarter usage, eclipsing the previous high of 3.7 billion bushels in the 2020-21 marketing year by about 1%. In turn, implied feed and residual use for the third quarter of 2025-26 was 1.09 billion bushels, and the total feed and residual use for the first three quarters stands at 5.63 billion bushels. With this month’s increase, the forecast total feed and residual use for 2025-26 is 6.35 billion bushels.
The change to the corn-for-ethanol forecast comes following the July NASS Grain Crushings and Co-Products Production report. With the first estimate for corn use for fuel ethanol in May 2026 provided by this report, total corn used for fuel ethanol through the first three quarters of 2025-26 is estimated at 4.13 billion bushels, about 1% above the same period from 2024-25. With this month’s downward revision, the forecast for total corn use for ethanol in 2025-26 stands at 5.55 billion bushels, about 2% more than the 5.44 billion bushels used in 2024-25. If realized, the use of 5.55 billion bushels of corn to make fuel ethanol would be the second-largest amount on record, falling about 50 million bushels or 1% below 2017-18. The 2025-26 marketing year average price is unchanged month to month at $4.15 per bushel.
Find additional information on the USDA Feed Outlook report from July.
