The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects 2016 planting and net farm incomes to fall in their 2016 market projections released this week.
Global economic growth and a strong U.S. dollar will make for a competitive trade marketplace in 2016, USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson said in a statement to Agri-Pulse.
“That, coupled with record global crops for grains and oilseeds and moderate demand growth over the past few years, have contributed to stock building and price declines over the past year,” said Johansson. “Those trends are expected to continue into 2016, but level off as trend yields would be expected to produce 2016 crops slightly lower than this past year’s record production.”
In all, planted acres for the eight major crops is projected to drop 2.5 million acres, according to Agri-Pulse.
Wheat acres will take the biggest hit, dropping 6.7 percent to 51 million acres. And prices are forecast to fall 80 cents to average $4.20 per bushel.
Soybean planted acres will be affected little, dropping only .2 percent down 200,000 acres. Projected prices are down 30 cents to $8.50 per bushel.
Corn acreage is expected to be up 2 million acres, a 2.3 percent increase compared to 2015. Estimated price per bushel is down 15 cents at $3.45.
The USDA projects a 9.6 percent rebound in cotton acres to 9.4 million acres. Prices are projected down 15 cents at 58 cents per pound for upland cotton.
But livestock numbers will improve.
USDA anticipates 97.4 billion pounds of total meat production. Beef cattle numbers are up 4 percent at the beginning of 2016 compared to 2015. Beef production is projected at 24.6 billion pounds, a 3.8 percent increase over last year.
Pork production is projected to be the highest ever at 25 billion pounds, a 2.2 percent increase over the previous year’s record output. Prices are projected to drop 5.9 percent to $47.30 per hundredweight.