crop forecast
Corn harvest looms in importance as stockpile shrinks
The U.S. corn stockpile is the smallest in three years and a comparatively small crop, delayed by the rainiest spring in a quarter-century, is slow to come to harvest this year, the government said in a pair of reports on Monday. The soybean stockpile also is markedly smaller than expected, although it is still the largest on record.
Trade war limits outlet for smaller-than-usual U.S. corn and soy crops
U.S. farmers will harvest their smallest corn and soybean crops since 2013, but the trade war will constrain exports of America’s two major crops for the second year in a row, forecast the USDA on Monday. Soybeans would sell at the lowest average price at the farm gate in 13 years.
U.S. corn crop could be smallest since 2012 drought
Based on surveys conducted ahead of USDA reports due for release today, analysts say corn plantings will total 86.7 to 87 million acres after a rainy and cold spring. That would be well below the 92.8 million acres that farmers had planned to seed.
More changes in store as USDA assesses wet planting season
The USDA took a 9 percent whack out of its projected U.S. corn harvest last week and economist David Widmar said on Monday that more adjustments will be forthcoming due to a remarkably rainy and prolonged planting season in the Farm Belt. "The implications of the slow, wet spring will take a while to be fully realized," wrote Widmar at the Agricultural Economic Insights blog.
With millions of acres unplanted, U.S. corn crop could be smallest in six years
The United States could be headed for its smallest corn crop – 13 billion bushels – since the scorching 2012 drought, according to estimates circulated ahead of USDA projections due today at noon ET. One of every six acres intended for corn, or 15.7 million acres, is yet to be planted because of a cold and persistently rainy spring, and yields per acre drop precipitously for late-planted corn.
Rain delays may pull down U.S. corn yield
Corn and soybean planting is running roughly 30 percentage points behind normal in a cold and rainy spring, said the weekly Crop Progress report on Monday. "Delayed planting has set the stage for potential corn yield reductions at the national level," but not guaranteed them, wrote economist David Widmar in a blog about the implications of one of the five slowest corn planting seasons on record.
FAPRI joins USDA in seeing higher farm income this year
Higher grain and soybean prices will increase U.S. net farm income modestly this year, said a University of Missouri think tank on Monday. The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute projected a $5.5 billion increase in net farm income, a broad measure of profits, compared to 2018, in line with a USDA estimate of a $6.3 billion increase.
‘Big crops, low prices,’ for a long time ahead, says CBO
After the shutdown, a deluge of major USDA reports on crops, ag outlook
With the shutdown behind it, the USDA will begin today to clear out a month's worth of backlogged data, including major reports that could jolt commodity markets and color farmers' decisions on crops to plant this spring. Chief economist Robert Johansson said there will be one exception — the globe-spanning WASDE report that serves as a monthly crop report for the world.
Lowest food prices in a year, says FAO
Global prices for cereal grains, dairy products and vegetable oils fell during September, pulling the Food Price Index to its lowest reading in at least a year, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Corn prices dropped by more than 4 percent, "mostly on expectations of a very large crop in the United States and ample supply prospects globally," said the FAO.
China trips soybeans, corn wins race for top U.S. crop
A year after making soybeans the most widely grown crop in the country, U.S. farmers will make corn king again, driven by trade war with China and a burdensome soy stockpile, said the FAPRI think tank at the University of Missouri. "China's tariffs will reduce U.S. soybean exports," said FAPRI. The research group expects farmers will slash soybean plantings by 5.5 percent in 2019 in the face of the lowest market price in 12 years.
The global flood of grain begins to drain away
Smallest U.S. winter wheat crop in 16 years
Searing drought in the central and southern Plains will result in the smallest winter wheat crop since 2002 and the second smallest in 47 years, said the USDA in its first estimate of the summer harvest.
Farmers plant one-fifth of U.S. corn crop in a week
More than 19 million acres of corn were planted last week, thanks to generally favorable weather in the Midwest, according to the Crop Progress report released on Monday.
Corn planting lags in cold, wet spring
World wheat production expected to fall for second year in a row
Europe and Russia are not likely to repeat their bumper wheat harvests of 2017, setting the world on track for the second year in a row of smaller wheat output, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Losing ground: Winter wheat sowings smallest in 109 years
In a USDA survey, growers indicated that they planted 32.6 million acres of winter wheat for harvest this spring, the smallest area since 1909 although not as small as expected by analysts. The decline in winter wheat, the dominant wheat grown in the United States, is part of a long-running shift to corn and soybeans that is projected to result in the smallest all-wheat plantings in the country since recordkeeping began.
Cotton stockpile grows despite higher demand for the fiber
Two of the major fibers available to clothing manufacturers are cotton and polyester. Cotton is becoming more price-competitive against petroleum-based polyester, which should boost global demand for the field-grown fiber, but it won't stop a build-up of cotton supplies, says the International Cotton Advisory Committee.
Winter wheat crop in slightly better condition
Nearly half of the U.S. winter wheat crop is in drought but its condition improved slightly in the past week, said the USDA on Tuesday. The weekly Crop Progress report also showed growers in the upper Midwest were rushing through corn and soybean planting after a slow start due to cold and wet weather.