Washington—At the opening day of its 2017 Outlook Forum on Feb. 23, USDA projected the 2017 U.S. soybean crop to reach a record 88 million planted acres, up 4.6 million acres – or 5.5 percent – from last year’s crop. The 2017 corn crop is projected at 90 million planted acres, down 4 million acres from last year, according to USDA Chief Economist Robert Johansson.
The U.S. wheat crop is projected at 46 million acres, down 8.3 percent from last year, while rice acreage in 2017 is expected to decline 17 percent, to 2.6 million planted acres. The U.S. cotton crop for 2017 is projected at 11.5 million planted acres, up 1.4 million acres – or 14 percent – from last year, and potentially the largest cotton crop in the country since 2012.
Overall acreage for the eight major commodity crops is projected at 249.8 million acres, down 1.4 percent from the 2016/17 marketing year. As for crop prices, USDA projected the average corn price at $3.50/bushel, up roughly three percent from the 2016/17 marketing year; soybeans at an average price of $9.60/bushel, up roughly 1.1 percent from the current marketing year; wheat at an average price of $4.30/bushel, up 12 percent from the current marketing year; and cotton at an average of 65 cents/pound for 2017, down four cents/pound from last year.
Johansson said net farm income in 2017 is projected at $62.3 billion, down from $68.3 billion in 2016, and reflecting a drop of almost 30 percent since 2013. U.S. farm exports, however, are forecast at $136 billion, up $2 billion from USDA’s previous estimate.