Market Matters Blog

Informa: Beans Acres Exceed Corn Acres

OMAHA (DTN) -- Private analytical firm Informa Economics sees farmers planting more soybean acres than corn acres next year for the first time since 1983.

Based primarily on its survey of producers in December, Informa said farmers are likely to plant 88.8 million acres of soybeans next year and 88 ma of corn. The changes are slight adjustments to group's prior estimates.

"Informa Economics made a slight reduction to their estimate for corn acres in 2015, from 88.3 million to 88.0 million acres," DTN analyst Todd Hultman said. "Their estimate of soybean acres increased slightly, from 88.3 million to 88.8 million acres, based on their December survey."

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Informa's latest estimates are 3.2% lower than last year's corn acreage and 5.5% higher on soybeans. Corn acreage in the Eastern Corn Belt is expected to decline 1 ma from 2014 while the Western Corn Belt is expected to decline 1.4 ma. Soybeans are most likely to be planted on those acres, Informa said.

"As could be expected from these slight changes, corn and soybean prices showed no impact from Informa's report Friday and were trading lower both before and after the numbers were released," Hultman said. "The anticipation of more corn acres going to soybeans in 2015 gives new-crop soybeans an early bearish bias, but there is a long way to go before harvest next fall."

Informa's report included production forecasts based on trend-type yield. It projects corn production at 13.4 bb with a 165.9 bpa yield, and soybean production at 4 bb with a 45 bpa yield.

Winter wheat was seeded on 42.3 million acres this fall, Informa estimated. That's about 121,000 acres lower than last year's plantings. Hard red winter wheat area, at 30.9 ma, is 408,000 acres higher than last year. Soft red winter wheat planting is estimated at 561,000 acres lower than last year at 7.9 ma.

"Informa's estimate of all wheat acres slipped from 56.8 million to 56.6 million acres and also had no visible impact on prices Friday," Hultman said.

All wheat production was projected at 2.21 billion bushels, about 180 mb larger than in 2014, Informa said. The all wheat average yield, at 45.6 bushels per acre, is about 2 bpa higher than last year.

USDA will release its initial winter wheat seedings report at 11 a.m. on Jan. 12. It will also release quarterly Grain Stocks, the Crop Production Annual Summary and the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.

(CZ)

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