This article has been reprinted from the March 21 USDA Grain Transportation Report.
For the week ending March 14, total inspections of grain (corn, wheat, and soybeans) for export from all major U.S. export regions reached 2.04 million metric tons (mmt).
This is a 12 percent decrease from the previous week, an 18 percent decrease from last year, and is 20 percent below the 3-year average.
The drop in inspections was driven by a 42 percent decrease in wheat inspections.
Shipments of wheat, primarily bound for Asia, also dropped last week.
Corn inspections were down 1 percent from week-to-week, but soybean inspections were unchanged.
Inspections of grain in the Mississippi Gulf were down 14 percent from the previous week, but inspections in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) increased 3 percent.