The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Prospective Plantings Report showed a record number of soybean acres will go in the ground this year.
Shelby Myers, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), said the Prospective Planting Report gives a good first look at what crops farmers intend to plant.
“USDA publishes an annual survey-based Prospective Plantings Report that’s always released on March 31,” Myers said. “This is really the first look at what U.S. farmers intend to plant given that they reply to this survey. We do a quick rundown of principal crops for U.S. farmers and, right now, we’ve got some good news overall.”
Myers noted more soybeans and less corn will be planted.
“U.S. farmers intend to plant a record 91 million acres of soybeans, which is about a 4.4% increase compared to what the soybean numbers were in 2021, so a really big increase in soybeans,” she said. “USDA only estimates that U.S. farmers intend to plant 89.5 million acres of corn, a decrease of about 4.2%, so there’s an implied shift away from corn acres to soybean acres. U.S. farmers intend to plant 47.4 million acres of wheat. That is an increase of 1.5% compared to 2021 – and about 12.2 million acres of cotton.”
A new AFBF Market Intel report dives further into the planting intentions.
“This is a good first estimate of what supply will look like. We certainly saw crop prices and commodity prices react to the reports released, with corn changing price anywhere from 20 to 25 cents in reaction to the report, as well as soybeans, wheat and cotton, shifting in price, as well,” Myers said. “(This is) the first indication of what the 2022 growing season will look like, obviously, before any kind of weather impacts or any other challenges that a grower may face throughout the growing season.”
View the full Market Intel report.
USDA will provide a crop acreage update report on June 30.