The United States exported more than 46.6 million metric tons (1.8 billion bushels) of corn in the 2015/2016 marketing year, a 1.8 percent increase from the prior year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) weekly sales reports.

Mexico, Japan and Colombia ranked in the top three for total accumulated exports of U.S. corn with more than 12.5 million (492.1 million bushels), 10.5 million (413.4 million bushels) and 4.5 million (177.2 million bushels) metric tons, respectively.

Export sales to Mexico rose 16 percent and to Colombia rose 5 percent from the previous year. Both of these markets have benefited from aggressive marketing and long-term development efforts by the U.S. Grains Council (USGC), which works globally on behalf of U.S. corn, sorghum, barley and co-products producers and related agribusinesses.

Total accumulated exports of U.S. sorghum totaled 7.8 million metric tons (307 million bushels) in the 2015/2016 marketing year, according to USDA reports.

China, Mexico and Pakistan ranked in the top three for exports of the crop, with 7 million (275.6 million bushels), 301,000 (11.8 million bushels), and 208,000 (8.2 million bushels) metric tons, respectively. Sorghum exports have increased steadily in the last five years, up more than 700 percent from the 2011/2012 marketing year, a product of market forces and market development efforts by USGC and the sorghum industry.

The latest weekly sales report, issued Sept. 15, also showed that the 2016/2017 marketing year is starting off strong for corn with more than 1.4 million metric tons (55.1 million bushels) in sales and carried over sales from the prior marketing year, an increase of 33 percent from a year ago. 

For U.S. exports of sorghum, accumulated exports reached 60,600 metric tons (2.4 million bushels) during the first week of the new marketing year.

For the 2016/2017 marketing year for U.S. barley, which started June 1, outstanding exports sales were reported at 6,400 metric tons (293,949 bushels) while cumulative exports were 5,500 metric tons (252,613 bushels) as of the Sept. 15 report.

USDA provides weekly export sales reports to identify outstanding sales and accumulated exports broken down by trading partner, allowing the trade and industry to measure export activity for selected U.S. agricultural commodities.

The full reports are available here.