U.S. growers will boost soybean plantings this spring and scale back on corn, the most widely grown American crop, after the revival of stalled exports of the beans to China.
Farmers will plant 85 million acres of soybeans this year, up from 81.2 million last year, the US Department of Agriculture said Thursday in the agency’s first outlook of the year.
Expectations for more soybean acres this spring reflect “stronger profitability compared to other crops, along with expected crop rotations across the Corn Belt and the Delta,” the USDA said.
Meanwhile, corn acres will drop to 94 million, from 98.8 million last year. Wheat acres will slip to 45 million, from 45.3 million last year. Overall, planting of the three principal crops will ease 1% while the prices farmers receive “are all forecast to rise slightly.”
Soybean futures were about flat at $11.4775 a bushel in Chicago on Thursday, holding near a recent three-month high.
“Nothing shocking in here — just keeps us having to watch US weather this summer,” Total Farm Marketing analyst Naomi Blohm said.
The outlook comes after farmers have been struggling for years, with relatively low crop prices and high costs for seeds, fertilizer and machinery. Pressures were exacerbated after President Donald Trump rolled out tariffs last year, which interrupted crop shipments out of the U.S. and made many imports more expensive. China avoided U.S. soybeans for much of the growing season, only resuming purchases after a meeting between Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping in October.
The agriculture sector is widely expected to start improving soon as longer-term cycles shift. Deere & Co., the world’s largest farm machinery manufacturer, lifted its annual profit outlook earlier Thursday.
“While the global large agriculture industry continues to experience challenges, we’re encouraged by the ongoing recovery in demand within both the construction and small agriculture segments,” Chief Executive Officer John May said in a statement.
Stepped-up soybean exports to China could improve conditions for American farmers while growers are also hoping for increased domestic use of higher-ethanol blends using fuel primarily made from corn.
Still, a lack of acreage expansion could limit demand for equipment and other farm supplies. That’s “keeping demand flat for farm-input purchases from agriculture upstream peers such as John Deere, Mosaic and Corteva,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Alexis Maxwell and Jason Miner said in a note on crop-input producers.
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