Weeks before tariffs and trade wars roiled markets across the globe, U.S farmers showed they were already ahead of the game. Growers mostly surveyed in the first two weeks of March told USDA they planned to boost corn acreage this spring while slashing soybean ground more than traders believed likely. The shift seems prescient on the heels of near-limit losses in soybeans Friday that pummeled November 2025 futures to new lows for the year.
Was this clairvoyance—or luck? Maybe a little of both, seasoned with memories of the first trade war in 2018 when Chinese imports of U.S. beans plunged by more than half.
Planting more corn and less soybeans seems like the ticket for 2025. Will it be the golden ticket?
Can either crop pull a profit?
For the record, Prospective Plantings out March 31 put corn at 95.3 million acres for 2025. That’s up 5.2% from the 90.5 million sown in 2024. Soybeans lost 4.1%, with USDA dropping the forecast to 83.5 million acres.
Accounting for historical abandonment and yields, this suggests a mammoth corn crop of 15.8 billion bushels, which easily would be an all-time high. Soybean production of 4.35 billion bushels would be big, but below records set in 2018 and broken in 2021.
More importantly, at least for prices, are levels of supplies left over at the end of the marketing year, Aug. 31, 2026. Corn stockpiles could approach 2 billion bushels, a 46-day cushion, while soybean inventories of 477 million bushels would be enough to last 40 days at expected levels of usage.
That translates into national corn cash prices averaging $4.10 a bushel, down 15 cents, USDA forecast for the 2024-25 crop in its March World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. The agency dropped soybeans by 12 cents, landing at $10.08. The government updates its old crop forecasts April 10 but typically doesn’t address new crop again until May 12.
Both estimates would be well below full economic costs of production, which the government last put at $4.79 for corn and $11.90 for soybeans. But if achieved, corn would lose $125 an acre, while soybeans would wind up $95 in the red. So, from the standpoint of pain, soybeans would bring slightly less agony than corn.
Did buyers front-load soybeans?
Plenty could—and almost certainly will—change from these initial forecasts. Assuming weather doesn’t disrupt seeding or yields, soybeans face two big question marks on the demand side of the ledger: exports and crush.
China is the big dog in the export market, but it’s not the only one barking. Other importers of soybeans from the U.S. face their own tariff issues. The EU, Africa and the rest of Asia bought more in the first half of the 2024-25 marketing year than during the previous year. Was that “real” demand or just nervous end users front-running the tariffs? Stay tuned for weekly data out of USDA.
Crush is the other leg of the demand stool, and my model suggests it should rebound during the next selling season, though just reaching average levels seen over the past decade. The result puts the selling range for nearby futures at $11.55 to $12.40 – maybe enough to break even depending on basis pushes.
Will prices cover production costs?
Bigger crops typically boost demand, lowering prices enough to lure buyers to the market to help clear the surplus. For 2025 corn my model assumes a record crop would also bring record usage. Demand from livestock and biofuel operators would establish new peaks under this scenario, though exports of 2.56 billion bushels would still fall below the mark of 2.75 billion set in 2020-21.
Profitable prices could be elusive for the average corn grower, with my model looking at a selling range for new crop nearby futures at $4.48 to $4.82.
Neither corn nor soybeans is a slam dunk favorite, based on these bottom-line projections. That’s likely why the closely watched ratio of new crop soybean to corn closed last week at 2.20:1, slightly in favor of corn from a historical perspective but not enough of an advantage to change many minds on the issue.