Farm Futures released its March 2024 Planting Intentions Survey results. Jacqueline Holland, a grain marketing analyst for Farm Futures, talks about what farmers are planting this spring.
“We are still looking at being a little bit higher on corn acreage relative to what USDA said in their February projection. Our farmers indicated that they are looking at planning 92.4 million acres of corn and 86 million acres of soybeans, and if those projections hold true, it would be the third-largest combined corn and soybean acreage planted by farmers.”
Farmers are planting less corn and more soybeans in 2024.
“Farmers are still indicating that they’re doing a one-for-one switch in less corn to more soybeans, but our corn acres are still trending higher. Our soybean acres are starting to trend a little bit higher, too, and I think that just reflects the more favorable price environment for soybeans relative to corn right now. Not as many changes as we were expecting to see after farmers stomach those $3 per bushel corn prices earlier at the end of February here.”
The wheat survey contained a few more surprises.
“Farmers indicated that they were gonna plant less spring wheat and less durum wheat this year. And compared to our previous surveys, they were a little bit more bullish on spring wheat earlier this year. However, farmers are still indicating that a lot of winter wheat was planted last fall. Our farmers indicated that 38.4 million acres of winter wheat were planted. That’s nearly a five percent increase from a year ago. We saw some better growing conditions on the plains throughout last year. There was more rain that was able to help alleviate drought conditions in the western plains.”