The USDA on June 28 announced that it plans to resurvey growers in 14 states in July to get a better assessment of planted acreage totals for corn, soybeans, cotton, and sorghum. The announcement came swiftly on the heels of USDA’s June 28 Acreage report, which estimated this year’s planted corn crop at a doubtful 91.7 million acres and soybeans at 80 million acres (GM June 27, p. 1).
Those acreage assessments were greeted with skepticism by analysts and traders, as they were based on grower surveys conducted in early June, when many areas remained unplanted and intentions were unclear due to extremely wet weather that plagued much of the central and eastern U.S. Trade expectations in late June had centered on an estimate of 87 million acres of corn (GM June 27, p. 32).
USDA acknowledged that “excessive rainfall had prevented planting at the time of the survey,” and said the updated acreage estimates collected in July will be published in the agency’s Aug. 12 Crop Production report “if the newly collected data justify any changes.” Lance Honig, branch chief for crops at USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), said in a tweet that almost 17 percent of the U.S. corn crop was not yet planted at the time of USDA’s grower survey in early June.
Analysts were not surprised by USDA’s plan to resurvey growers in July, with some saying that the June 28 acreage report should never have been published given this year’s extraordinary planting delays and the absence of reliable data.
“Either there’s a real story here that explains why all the anecdotal evidence is wrong, or we’re in for a slow but meaningful downward adjustment on corn acres over time,” said Jason Miner, Senior Chemicals Analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
The size and scope of the resurvey was described by some as a rare move for the agency. USDA said it planned to contact growers of corn in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin; cotton in Arkansas; sorghum in Kansas; and soybeans in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
The June 28 acreage totals, which actually showed an increase for planted corn and a decrease for soybeans from USDA’s June 11 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report (GM June 14, p. 1), sent corn futures prices tumbling. Soy prices, however, experienced gains, particularly after President Trump announced on June 29 that the U.S. and China had declared a truce in their trade war, and Trump would delay imposing an additional $300 billion in tariffs as the world’s two largest economies agreed to resume negotiations.
The Trump administration also announced on July 1 that growers who were prevented from planting crops this year will still be eligible to collect Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments if they plant cover crops on those acres. The move was signaled earlier by USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who said the agency was “exploring legal flexibilities” to aid growers who were forced to file unprecedented prevented planting claims this year.