The USDA report released March 31, indicated that US farmers intend to plant the biggest corn acres since 2012 at 97 million acres, that’s 7.3 million more acres than last year. Remember, this survey was done March 1st, so many expect this number to decline, given with what has happened to corn prices. Weather will also play into this number as we move forward into the spring planting window. Bean acres are expected to increase by 7.4 million from last year, to 83.5 million acres. The wheat seedings came in at the lowest number in history!
Corn stocks are down 660 million bushels from last year and soybean stocks are down 474 million bushels. Keep in mind while stock numbers are some of the lowest in recent years, they are still historically adequate levels to satisfy demand. Traders will be closing monitoring the April supply/demand report.
See estimates below:
USDA report – March 31, 2020
| March 31, 2020 | Avg. Est. | March 1, 2019 | |
| Quarterly corn stocks | 7.95 | 8.134 | 8.613 |
| Quarterly bean stocks | 2.25 | 2.228 | 2.727 |
| Quarterly wheat stocks | 1.41 | 1.430 | 1.593 |
| 2020 | Avg. Est. | 2019 | |
| Corn Acres | 97 | 94.1 | 89.7 |
| Bean Acres | 83.5 | 85.0 | 76.1 |
| All Wheat | 44.7 | 45.0 | 45.2 |
| Winter Wheat | 30.8 | 30.8 | 31.2 |
