After back-to-back record crops, U.S. corn production will drop to 13.2 billion bushels this year, says an estimate by Kansas State University. That would be down 7 percent from, and 1 billion bushels smaller than, the 2014 crop but still the third-largest on record.
KSU forecasts corn plantings will shrink by 2 percent and yields by 5 percent. The corn yield was a record 171 bushels an acre in 2014. Low commodity prices make soybeans more attractive to plant this year. With a smaller corn crop, KSU says prices will rise. While it forecasts a $3.85-a-bushel average price for the 2014 crop – 20 cents higher than USDA’s forecast – the 2015 crop will fetch an average $4.20, it says.
The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute also projects a cut-back in corn plantings and a crop of 13.25 billion bushels. But it foresees slightly smaller corn demand than KSU and a larger stockpile, so it estimates an average price of $3.81 a bushel for the 2015 crop, 40 cents below the KSU estimate. FAPRI’s supply-demand tables are available here.
Forecasters generally expect a multi-year run of comparatively low commodity prices in the near term, the result of abundant supplies of the major crops, while growers grapple with high production costs.