The Prospective Plantings Report shows farmers will increase their soybean acres this year. Betty Resnick, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, says the report should be bullish for the price of corn.

“Corn is going to see a reduction of 4.9 percent of acres compared to last year down to 90 million acres which was below industry expectations heading into the report. Soybean acres are going to see an increase from last year up three-and-a-half percent. Wheat will decrease, and then we’re also going to see cotton increase, in addition to some changes in other crops. One major finding that caught my eye was that there’s a decrease in overall principal crop acreage, and a reduction of 6.3 million acres or two percent.”

Resnick says the increase in soybean acres is due to current economic conditions.

“The increase in soybean acreage was kind of expected going into this report. In a time of declining prices, farmers really turn to soybeans as they are a lower input, less risky crop overall, so they make sense in a time of price uncertainty.”

This report is the first of many that will help tell the story of crop conditions over the course of the growing season.

“Crop progress reports are starting back up. The first will actually publish on Monday, April 1, and those will be released weekly. On June 28, we’ll get the next acreage report which is when they’ll survey farmers to get an understanding of what they actually were able to put into the ground this spring. And between now and then, of course we’ll have our monthly WASDE reports as well.”