Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 7/1/19


USDA’s much-anticipated acreage report on Friday roiled the trading markets with data that showed far more corn acres planted nationwide than was expected (91.7 million acres compared with consensus estimates of 87m acres) and far fewer soybean acres (80 million acres compared with a consensus estimate of 84.7 million acres).

But analysts were quick to say the report’s “accuracy is questionable” and USDA announced later in the day that it will resurvey 14 states on their acres planted to corn, cotton, sorghum and soybeans, and will update the June report as necessary. 

“Everyone was looking for more beans and less corn and got exactly the opposite,” Jack Scoville, analyst with the PRICE Futures Group, told Successful Farming. “No one understands the corn planted and harvested area, as USDA had not shown that type of progress in the weekly data.” 

The corn futures contracts lost about 9% of their value in the hour after the report was announced; prices still are the highest they’ve been since 2015, boosted by the wet spring and significant delays in planting.

Soybeans, meanwhile, soared in value in trading immediately after the data was released, before ending the day about even with its opening price. Soybean contracts also have been the year’s highs in trading in the second half of June, although prices are low relative to the crop’s five-year moving average.

Coverage preceding the report’s release had speculated that the U.S. was in for the smallest corn harvest since 2012, considering the data in interim reports USDA has generated on progress in corn and soybean planting.

The surprising report on Friday, then, is being dismissed as “among the least accurate in many years,” said Stephens Inc. analyst Mark Connelly, in a report to investors. Still, he wrote, “the headline numbers are a positive for protein producers as corn futures have had a meaningful move downward in response to the report. [Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride and Sanderson Farms] have covered the majority of their feed costs through the fall, so we will continue to monitor grain pricing as we head into a new crop year/ contracting season.”

Connelly also noted that the next accurate planted acres data won’t be available until September, and that the August World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report “should not be relied upon.”

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