The June acreage report from USDA generally doesn’t deliver surprises, according to Ed Usset, an extension professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. While corn and soybeans didn’t turn heads, wheat did draw some attention this go around.
“Wheat acres are down to 42.7 million acres. That’s the lowest I have on record. I don’t go back 150 years, but going back 60, 70 years. When I started in the grain business in 1981, the U.S. planted 88 million acres of wheat, and now we’re well less than half of that at 42.7 million acres. So, modestly supportive to the world of wheat.”
In the world of corn and soybeans, the June acreage report bumped up the acreage minimally from what was intended, a couple hundred thousand acres in both, which wasn’t a surprise to Ed.
“Full planted acres in the June report, 85.4 million acres for soybeans. We were looking, you know, that’s a little higher than the March Intentions report, a little, you know, couple hundred thousand bushels higher than the average trade expectation. In the world of corn, they reported 95.3 million acres, a big number, but really only 200,000 acres more than anticipated by the trade, and right in line with the March Intentions report.”
While acreage figures largely met expectations and didn’t give the market much of a surprise, there are other factors that could influence production costs and profitability. These include the weather and policy changes on fertilizer.
“The administration is easing some tariffs on imports of fertilizer from a couple of different countries. I’m not sure what a difference that makes in June. I don’t know how much fertilizer we’re using in late June, but that may speak to better things come this fall. The war over there and the issues going on in the Strait of Hormuz are sort of hanging over this market, but we seem to be getting, unfortunate, we’re getting comfortable with it. We’re bumbling our way through and seem to be doing okay. The markets seem to relax a little bit. We’re not focused on that. We’re focused on weather, and it looks good.”