USDA released various commodity outlooks on Friday morning as part of the annual Agricultural Outlook Forum

The forecasts give the first look at USDA's projections for crops and livestock in the 2018-19 marketing year. WHEAT Wheat production will increase by 98 million bushels, or 6% higher than 2017-18. USDA sees a 47.4-bushel-per-acre yield to go with 46.5 million acres seeded, up about 500,000 acres from the old crop. USDA bumped up overall wheat acres even though the 2018 winter wheat crop was 32.6 million acres, the lowest in 109 years. Overall production is pegged at 1.839 billion bushels, even though USDA cites the potential of increased abandonment in the Southern Plains because of drought conditions hitting the winter wheat crop. With 1.009 billion bushels of carry-in from the 2017-18 crop, USDA sees 135 million bushels of imports and total supplies at 2.983 billion bushels for 2018-19, down 93 million bushels from the 2017-18 supplies. Total domestic use is pegged at 1.127 billion bushels while exports for 2018-19 are projected at 925 million bushels, down 25 million bushels from last year. Wheat is expected to face strong international competition for exports, as the European Union will have a larger crop and Argentina will expand wheat acres. Both Australia and Canada also are expected to have larger export supplies as well as they rebound from lower 2017-18 yields. Ending stocks for 2018-19 are expected to decline roughly 8%, or 78 million bushels