USDA Crop Forecasts Continue to Undergird Need for New Farm Bill

USDA crop forecasts this week add more grist to the argument for a new farm bill, with higher production, lower prices, and no relief in sight.

World Ag Outlook Board Chair Mark Jekanowski says, “Season average market price for soybeans, we lowered this month, 30 cents per bushel, now forecast at 10-dollars-and-80-cents per bushel. Yield was raised by 1.2 bushels per acre, and harvested area was also raised by a million acres. So, that adds up to a production increase of about 154 million bushels this month alone.”

For good reason, it is a lack of severe weather. USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey says “And with each passing day, that gets crops closer to maturity. Furthermore, we continue to see the absolute absence of extreme heat.”

But there is plenty of moisture in key growing areas, leading to record or near-record production for corn and beans on record yields of 183 bushels per acre for corn, dropping the season-average price by 10 cents to 4.20 a bushel.

Last month, the American Farm Bureau’s Market Intel analysis projected losses per acre this year of more than 99 dollars for corn, almost 43 dollars for soybeans, and 118 dollars for wheat. AFB warned of the “likely loss” of more family farms without a new farm bill, citing the loss of 140-thousand farms in the last five years.

Story by Matt Kaye/Berns Bureau; courtesy of NAFB News Service

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