76 million of acres in soybean
jgiuntoli April 1st, 2009
By Charles Abbott and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) – U.S. farmers are aiming for a record soybean crop this year but high costs for fertilizer and other supplies will mean less corn, wheat and cotton, U.S. government data showed on Tuesday.
After two years of booming returns, farmers are more cautious about planting this year as the global recession hits exports, the livestock sector and the ethanol industry.
“The economy has cut into total plantings and there will be a battle for acres in corn and beans this spring, especially if there are delays in planting corn,” said Don Roose, president and analyst of U.S. Commodities, Des Moines, Iowa.
Lured by high prices, farmers will plant 76.024 million acres (30.77 million hectares) of soybeans in coming months, the U.S. Agriculture Department said in its annual plantings report. According to Reuters calculations, farmers could bring in a record harvest of 3.2 billion bushels, if weather and yields are average.
“It is principally the high input costs and farmers’ concern about not being able to pencil out a profit” that led to the boost for soybeans, which cost less to grow, said John Schnittker, a private consultant.
But the switch to soybeans out of corn was far less than traders had expected. Farmers are still on track to produce the second-largest crop of corn on record.
“Ultimately, if you looked at what the returns per acre were, corn still trumped soybeans even though farmers are facing higher fertilizer costs and higher seed costs,” said Terry Francl, an economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The report boosted soybean futures prices by more than 5 percent at the Chicago Board of Trade on Tuesday. ID:nNLV932229
Total plantings for the eight major crops were down 2.8 percent or 7.091 million acres, which could contribute to volatile price swings for farmers, analysts said. ID:nN31408115
USDA pegged corn plantings at 84.986 acres, down 1 percent from 2008, which could produce about 12.2 billion bushels under normal conditions, according to Reuters calculations. ID:nDAT001231
The planting estimates were based on a survey of 86,000 farmers in the first half of March. ID:nN31362977
USDA forecast wheat area of 58.638 million acres, down 7 percent from last year, suggesting wheat production of 2.1 billion bushels.
The survey was done before severe flooding hit the Red River Valley, a top spring wheat area in Minnesota and North Dakota, which analysts have said could cut plantings in the area by 500,000 acres. ID:nN27197989
PEANUT PLANTINGS DOWN
Cotton plantings could be the smallest since 1983 as growers react to depressed prices and demand. The USDA forecast area of 8.812 million acres, down 7 percent from last year. ID:nN31321185
Severe drought in California could hurt rice and cotton plantings in the state, the USDA said.
But some farmers who normally plant peanuts will plant more cotton instead, the USDA said.
Peanut plantings are expected to be slashed by 27 percent from last year to the smallest area since 1915 because of concerns about demand in the wake of a recent food poisoning outbreak, the USDA said. ID:nN31429300
“Farmers are going to have to make some tough choices this year,” said Dee Dee Darden, whose family has grown peanuts in Virginia for 50 years but might not land a contract this year.
“We really depend on the peanuts,” she said. “We can get more return per acre on a crop of peanuts than anything else.”
Farmers still have time to change their minds about what to grow depending on soil moisture conditions, fertilizer prices and crop returns heading into spring, said Stewart Ramsey, senior agricultural economist with IHS Global Insight. “We still could see some acreage push and pull,” Ramsey said. “Farmers are making decisions on bigger pieces of their final acreage allocations later every year.”
(Additional reporting by Sam Nelson in Chicago; Editing Russell Blinch and Marguerita Choy; Editing by David Gregorio)