Carryover

Carryover is the portion of a crop's ending stocks that rolls into the next marketing year as its opening supply, linking one year's harvest to the next.

Carryover is the bridge between one crop year and the next: the ending stocks left over from the year just finished become the carryover, or opening supply, for the year that follows, before that year’s own harvest arrives. A large carryover gives a market a cushion against a disappointing next harvest; a thin carryover leaves it exposed.

Because a marketing year is defined around a single harvest, carryover is the mechanism that lets analysts track supply continuously across years rather than treating each harvest in isolation. A string of large harvests can build up carryover over several years even if any single year’s crop looks unremarkable, while a run of weak harvests can draw it down to levels that leave the market sensitive to further disruption. See stocks-to-use.