News

USDA lowers corn, soybean crop estimates

The USDA has lowered its projections for 2019 U.S. corn and soybean
production. It has been a rough growing season for producers in many parts of
the U.S., with an historically slow planting pace, widely varied development
weather, and the slowest pace of corn and soybean harvest in years.

Corn is now estimated at 13.661 billion bushels, 1% lower than in October and 5% below 2018, with the USDA lowering the average yield estimate by 1.4 bushels to 167.0 bushels per acre and leaving the harvested acreage guess unchanged at 81.815 million acres. In 2018, corn totaled 14.420 billion bushels with an average yield of 176.4 bushels per acre and harvested area of 81.74 million acres.

Soybeans are pegged at 3.550 billion bushels, slightly less than last month and a drop of 20% on the year, with no month to month changes for average yield or harvested area at 46.9 bushels per acre and 75.626 million acres, respectively. Last year, soybean production totaled 4.428 billion bushels with an average yield of 50.6 bushels per acre and harvested area of 87.594 million acres.

The USDA also tightened ending stocks projections for corn and wheat, while raising soybeans slightly.

The next set of supply, demand, and production estimates is out December 10th.