USDA says comfortable — but is South American grain supply really that secure?

By Raphael Galo, Head of Agribusiness and Structured Operations at A7 Capital

For the U.S. producer looking at the 2025-26 crop after USDA’s WASDE reports resumed, the outlook for soybeans and corn in South America still appears “comfortable” in the official numbers, but once you dig into weather, costs and domestic demand, the safety margin looks much thinner than the headlines suggest.

In Brazil, soybean numbers keep climbing. CONAB’s second crop survey projects a record area of about 49 million hectares (+3.6% from the previous crop), with production estimated at 177.6016 million tons in 2025-26, slightly below the 171.4817 million tons of the 2024-25 cycle. USDA’s November WASDE, in turn, works with a Brazilian crop of 175 million tons, domestic use close to 63.3 million and exports