Farmers intend to plant 97.3 million acres of corn for all purposes in 2013, up slightly from last year (97.16 million acres) and 6 percent higher than in 2011, according to USDA’s “Prospective Plantings” report yesterday. If this is acreage realized, it will represent the largest planted acreage in the United States since 1936 when an estimated 102 million acres were planted.
Additional planted acres for corn are expected to come from small grains, cotton, pastureland, and the Conservation Reserve Program.
Soybean planted area this year is estimated at 77.1 million acres, down slightly from last year but the fourth highest on record. Compared with 2012, planted area is down across the Great Plains with the exception of North Dakota. Nebraska and Minnesota are expecting the largest declines compared with last year, while Illinois and North Dakota are expecting the largest increases. All wheat planted area for 2013 is estimated at 56.4 million acres, up 1 percent from 2012.
The USDA report is a snapshot of producers’ intentions as of March 1. Adverse weather could lead to planting delays and possibly shift intended acreage into other crops, primarily soybeans as the season progresses, analysts noted.
Producers in the western Corn Belt states of South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, where drought is still a concern, switched some acres out of both corn and soybeans and into sorghum, a more drought-tolerant choice, according to analysts who studied the report. Ethanol’s demand for more sorghum is also a likely positive factor.
“If you have good yields, corn and beans are the best cash crops,” Mike Zuzolo, the president of Global Commodity Analytics told Bloomberg News. “The drought fears are being pulled out now as we get more moisture across the U.S.,” he added.
An analysis of the corn-acreage changes by ProFarmer newsletter found steady to lower acres in the highest-yielding states (Minnesota is the exception) and more acres in the traditionally lower-yielding states. Last year, the South saw record corn yields that pulled up the national average yield, but the migration of corn acres away from most Corn Belt states will likely hold down the national average corn yield in 2013.
