The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service will release the 2024 prospective plantings report on Thursday March 28th. The report provides the official USDA survey-based estimates of U.S. farmers’ planting intentions for the year. NASS mailed the survey in late February asking producers to indicate which crops they intend to plant in 2024, how many acres, and the amount of grains that they have stored on their farms.
The USDA Ag Outlook Forum in mid-February offered the first projections for planted acreage in 2024. The report showed initial expectations for a decline in total planted area of corn, wheat, and soybeans relative to the previous year. The February report projected 91 million planted corn acres and 87.5 million planted soybean acres in 2024. In 2023 United States farmers planted 94.6 million corn acres and 83.6 million soybean acres.
Joe Camp, director of managed programs at Market Focus LLC, a division of CommStock Investments tells the IARN that the March prospective plantings report typically has similar acreage totals to the February estimates from USDA.
Camp says the expected shift in corn acres to soybean acres might not be as big as the estimates in the February projections.
He says that farmers in the southern growing areas of the United States could change the planted corn acreage estimate if they choose to plant a different crop this spring.
Thursday will also feature the release of the quarterly grain stocks report from USDA.
That was Joe Camp, director of managed programs at Market Focus LLC, a division of CommStock Investments.
