Yesterday was the big annual March USDA Prospective Planting acreage report of the year. This is a much-anticipated report every year, and there has been a lot of discussion about the price of soybeans, exports, South American crops, and if the scale would tilt toward corn.
Well, going into the report, there was talk of a bigger corn crop, and it did confirm that American farmers plan to plant a lot more this year than they did last year. That number is 95.3 million acres of corn at an average 181 bushel per acre. That is an increase of 5%.
Some of those acres would come from soybeans.... Down four percent to 83.5 million acres. Some of those acres however could come from cotton. That estimate is for a reduction of twelve percent to just 9.8 million acres of cotton.
Wheat acres also fell, but only two percent, and that leaves it at forty five million. The corn acreage came in above the average trade guess, which was 94.361 million, but the USDA survey results were below the soybean pre-report estimates, which was 83.76 million acres.
Ben Brown, an extension agricultural economist at the University of Missouri , says even though 95.3 million is above the average trade guess, it’s not as high as what some expected. Some say the corn market didn't react nearly as bad as feared, because the majority of traders do not think we can hit a 181 average trend yield.
You can hear John's Ag Minute in the player below.