News

Lost corn acres not likely to return

An ag economist says the six million acre decline in crop acres in USDA’s Prospective Plantings report aren’t likely to reappear.

Joe Janzen, at the University of Illinois, tells Brownfield…

“We do see some big swings in acreage from the March report to later in the year, but corn and soybean acres, if those acres go up by 1%, that would be a substantial increase.”  He says, “And that’s just not even enough to get back to where we thought the size of this crop might be.”

Janzen says the drop was a surprise, especially in corn, and the economics could lead to a further decline in U.S. corn acres…

“We’ll be watching to see do we see some acreage shifts in the mix, say, between corn and soybeans, a lot of growers are saying it’s hard to make corn profitable at the point where prices are at right now,” he says.

Corn prices saw brief post-report gains, but those have mostly been given back.  He says a positive is…

“When you put together a balance sheet for new crop corn that 90,000,000-acreage number prevents you from some of the sort of doomsday scenarios of really massive stocks.”  He says, “It’s just hard to get there with a 90,000,000-acreage figure.”

Janzen says USDA’s June Acreage Report will set the tone for the U.S. supply and demand situation moving forward.   

AUDIO: Joe Janzen – University of Illinois