USDA sees more soy and wheat plantings, less corn for 2021-22

Chicago | Reuters — U.S. farmers are likely to expand plantings of soybeans and wheat while slightly reducing plantings of corn for the upcoming marketing year, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday.

USDA forecast that farmers will seed 90 million acres of corn in the 2021-22 crop year, down from 91.0 million for 2020-21. For soybeans, plantings are projected to rise to 89 million acres, from 83.1 million.

USDA projected U.S. all-wheat plantings for 2021-22 at 46 million acres, up from 44.3 million acres in 2020-21.

Spot soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade are trading near $11 a bushel, up about 17 per cent so far in 2020, fueled by export demand from China (all figures US$). CBOT corn futures are up about five per cent for the year, near $4 a bushel, and CBOT wheat futures are up about eight per cent, near $6 a bushel.

China’s demand for feed grains has also lifted corn futures while wheat has drawn support from dry conditions in crop areas of Russia, Argentina and the U.S. Plains.

The crop projections issued Friday are part of USDA’s annual 10-year outlook for the agricultural sector. The government will release a complete report on its outlook to the year 2030 in February.

— Reporting for Reuters by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago.