Ahead of USDA’s Annual Outlook Conference, corn and soybean analysts estimated planted acreage, production, and ending stocks for the 2020/21 U.S. crops. The forecasts presented were bearish compared to 2019/20 figures.

Beginning with corn, estimated planted acreage averaged 93.6 million acres, almost 4 million acres greater than USDA’s 2019/20 total of 89.7 million acres. Estimated 2019/20 corn production averaged a record 15.20 billion bushels. Using a harvest rate of 92 percent, yield would be around 176.5 bushels per acre.

Corn ending stocks estimates averaged nearly 2.50 billion bushels for 2020/21, up 604 million bushels from USDA’s 2019/20 ending stocks estimate.

Soybean 2020/21 planted acreage estimates averaged 85.0 million acres, up almost 9 million acres from 2019/20. This led to production estimates averaging roughly 4.25 billion bushels, which would be the fourth largest U.S. soybean crop on record.

Soybean 2020/21 ending stocks estimates averaged 533 million bushels, up nearly 110 million bushels from the 2019/20 USDA estimate but down about 375 million bushels from 2018/19 ending stocks.

USDA will give its official estimates later this week. The industry is optimistic, though it’s very early to make reliable forecasts, with corn not yet in the ground and over seven months before harvest.

U.S. corn production & ending stocks by season


Source: USDA
Posted by: Information Services
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