IARN — Ahead of the USDA’s Planted Acreage and Quarterly Grain Stocks reports this Wednesday, Farmers Business Network has released its 2021 U.S. Acreage Report.
FBN’s report, which includes responses from more than 2,000 farmers, has major implications for farmers and commodity prices. FBN chief economist Kevin McNew tells IARN that strong prices and good planting weather likely helped push the corn acreage number above the USDA’s March reading of 91.1 million acres.
“We have corn acres going from 91.1 in March to 92.9 in June,” said McNew. “That’s an increase of 1.8 million acres. On beans, we’re actually going down in our estimates. We’re seeing bean acres come down about a million acres from the 87.6 number in March. I know that’s very contrary to what farmers will see from other analysts. We just didn’t find a ton of evidence that they increased corn and bean acres substantially over what they said in March.”
“There was some tweaking of the margins,” he continued. “Iowa was a good example where farmers in March told us they were pretty eager to plant a little bit more beans than maybe normal. When we resurveyed them in June, they pretty much said the same thing, so we didn’t move the needle too much in Iowa.”
For the corn crop, FBN’s latest data shows that Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri were the three biggest leaders when it came to increasing corn acres. Farmer preference for corn appears to have worked against soybeans this season, says McNew. While the overall loss of 1 million acres is a small drop, it could lead to big price implications. Illinois farmers appear to have reduced soybean acreage more than any other state, by 297,000 acres.
FBN’s report is based on survey responses from more than 2,000 farmer members, aggregated across 40 states, representing 4.2 million acres and 9 principal crops.
To download the 2021 FBN U.S. Acreage Report, visit the FBN website.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network
Photo courtesy of Farmers Business Network (FBN)
