Despite record-setting corn and soybean crops and an upturn in wheat production, the crops are worth 10 percent less than 2013’s output due to sharply lower farm-gate prices. Corn, wheat and soybeans are the three most widely planted crops in the nation – covering 360,000 square miles this year – and will have a combined value of $107 billion at the farm gate, based on USDA estimates of season-average prices, compared to the $119.3 billion value of 2013’s crops. The lower value of the crops are among the reasons USDA forecasts a contraction in farm income this year. Production costs are up too.
Farmers will reap the first 14 billion-bushel corn crop on record this fall – 14.032 billion by USDA’s crop report – thanks to record yields of 167.4 bushels an acre. The crop would be 1 percent larger than the mark set last year. With two record crops in a row, a corn surplus of 1.808 billion bushels would be on hand when the 2015 crop is ready for harvest. It would be the largest “carryover” in nine years despite the lowest season-average price in five years to encourage consumption.
Soybean production was estimated at 3.816 billion bushels, up 14 percent from the record crop of 2009, due to record plantings and record yields, said USDA. The soybean surplus would triple in size in the coming year, with 430 million bushels on hand when the 2015 crop is mature, says USDA. It would be a six-week supply compared to the scanty two-week supply expected at the end of this month.
Corn, wheat and soybean prices were record high during the 2012 drought and have slid downward since as farm output recovered. The decline will continue, USDA says, with this year’s corn crop selling for an average $3.90 a bushel, soybeans for $10.35 a bushel and wheat for $6.30 a bushel. Farm-gate prices for the 2013 crops are pegged at $4.45 for corn, $13.00 for soybeans and $6.87 for wheat.