The productive capacity of U.S. agriculture is on full display in the USDA’s record books: The three largest corn crops ever harvested came in 2013, 2014 and 2015, with back-to-back record-setting crops in 2013 and 2014. Soybean growers set back-to-back records in 2014 and 2015.
This year’s corn and soybean crops will not be far off that pace and will be piled on top of some of the largest stockpiles in years, according to USDA data released at the annual Outlook Forum.
Based on market conditions and assuming normal weather and yields, the USDA projects a corn crop of 13.827 billion bushels, up 2 percent from 2015, and a soybean harvest of 3.810 billion bushels, down 3 percent from last year’s record. “With higher production and larger beginning stocks, corn supplies are projected to be record high,” said USDA. “With sharply higher beginning stocks more than offsetting lower production, soybean supplies, as with corn, are projected to be record high.”
When the 2017 crops are ready for harvest, the U.S. corn inventory would be the largest in 12 years, a projected 1.977 billion bushels, or nearly a two-month supply. The soybean stockpile, projected at 440 million bushels, would be the second-largest in 10 years. With ample inventories, the farm-gate price for this year’s corn, soybean, and wheat crops would be the lowest in a decade.
As a gauge of the vast increase in production, a decade ago the U.S. corn crop was 10.535 billion bushels and the first crop to top 13 billion bushels came in 2007. The 2016 crop projected by USDA would be a 31-percent increase from 2006.
The soybean crop a decade ago was 3.188 billion bushels and it was only the third time that production exceeded 3 billion bushels. According to USDA projections, this year’s crop would be 20-percent larger than in 2006.
Wheat growers are projected to reap a crop of 1.999 billion bushels, 3-percent smaller than last year, but the United States would have nearly a six-month supply when the 2017 harvest begins. The carry-over of 989 million bushels would be the largest since 1987/88, says USDA.
The agency projected a cotton crop of 14.3 million bales weighing 480 pounds apiece this year, up more than 10 percent from last year due to a 10-percent increase in plantings. The farm-gate price was projected at 58 cents a pound, down 2.5 cents and the lowest since 2008/09. The global glut in cotton will continue through 2016/17. Although the stockpile would be pared by nearly 5 percent, it still would equal nearly an 11-month supply. Half of it would be in China, where the government is trying to work down the surplus by restricting imports, lowering domestic production, and selling state-owned cotton to domestic spinners.