Planting season is upon us, and U.S. farmers are making planting decisions as we speak. But if you’re expecting to hear that the U.S. will fill in corn and wheat supply deficits, you’ll be disoypointed.
Despite grain prices rising as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the USDA Prospective Plantings Report didn’t find expanded wheat or corn acres. Instead, it found soybeans could dethrone King Corn for only the third time in history.
Soy what? U.S. producers surveyed in the report intend to plant 91M acres of soybeans in 2022. That’s not only up 4% from last year but also a record high. Illinois and Missouri are expected to see the largest soybean acreage increases—about 400K more acres each. Corn acres are expected to be down 4% from last year to 89.5M acres.
With the global wheat shortage on the horizon, all wheat planted area for 2022 is estimated to be up only 1% from 2021 to 47.4M acres.
Anticipated food shortages. Volatile markets. High input costs. In 2022, farmers could be facing more pressure than Luisa in Encanto.
The Prospective Plantings report is the first official, survey-based estimates of planting intentions, with nearly 73K farm operators surveyed. Markets reacted to the report’s release, with the corn September future price jumping 20 cents above the day’s opening price, close to $7.00/bu. Soybean futures fell 37 cents below the day’s opening price to $14.74/bu. Wheat landed at $9.96/bu. after initially rising and then falling 39 cents.