U.S. farmers planted nearly 2 million more acres of corn and soybeans than they planned in late winter, but soybeans, for the first time in 35 years, will be the most widely grown crop in the country, said the USDA’s annual Acreage report. The soybean harvest could be the second-largest ever and corn the third-largest, assuming normal weather and yields.
Ordinarily, the result would be ample stockpiles of corn and soybeans through 2019, providing an anchor on commodity prices, which have been in a trough since the commodity boom collapsed in 2013. The outlook is less certain, and possibly punishing for farmers, because of the potential of Chinese retaliation against U.S. products, including farm exports, when U.S. tariffs take effect on Friday on Chinese high-tech products. Commodity prices declined through June due to concern over the export outlook and the prospect of bumper U.S. crops.
Based on its survey of 70,500 operators, the USDA estimated soybean plantings of 89.6 million acres, up by 600,000 acres from its March survey, and corn plantings of 89.1 million acres, some 1.1 million acres more than in March. Wheat sowings, at 47.8 million acres, also were larger than growers indicated when surveyed in early March.
The USDA did not query growers on the change in plans but corn, soybean and wheat prices showed modest improvement during the planting season compared to wintertime.
For decades, corn was king when it came to acreage. But soybeans are expected to “match or exceed corn area for much of the next decade,” according to USDA economists, who pointed to high demand in China for the oilseed. Soybeans are the leading U.S. farm export to the world’s most populous nation.
The last time that soybeans topped corn in the United States was 1983, when the Reagan administration offered bonus federal support to farmers who idled cropland. Growers planted a record 90.14 million acres of soybeans last year, trailing corn by only 25,000 acres. By area, the four top U.S. crops are corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton.
In the quarterly Grain Stocks report, the USDA said there were 1.22 billion bushels of soybeans in storage as of June 1, up 26 percent from a year ago. The USDA said soybean consumption in March, April and May, at 888 million bushels, was up 15 percent from the same period in 2017. Reuters said the soybean stockpile and soy consumption figures were the largest on record for June of any year.