Farmers are harvesting the largest U.S. corn crop ever grown, 15.2 billion bushels, and only the third crop on record to top 15 billion bushels, said the Agriculture Department. Corn production is up worldwide so the season-average price paid to U.S. growers will be 10 cents a bushel lower than previously forecast, said the USDA.
In its monthly Crop Production report, the USDA raised its estimate of corn yields per acre to 174.9 bushels, an increase of 1.9 bushels from its October forecast. Inspections of randomly selected fields “indicate the highest number of ears on record”—29,550 ears per acre—in the 10 major corn states.
USDA analysts estimated this year’s crop would sell for an average $4.85 at the farm gate, 10 cents less than the 2022 crop. With the huge harvest, domestic use, exports and stocks would increase, said the monthly WASDE report. The corn stockpile would total 2.156 billion bushels when the 2024 crop is ready for harvest, the largest carry-over in five years. World corn production was forecast to rise 5.5 percent this year. The U.S. crop would be 11 percent larger.
Corn is the most widely planted crop in the United States. The only crops to exceed 15 billion bushels besides this year were 15.074 billion bushels in 2021 and 15.148 billion bushels in 2016.