Record corn harvest underway as farmers brace for lower prices

October 15, 2014

From WATTAgNet:

As farmers in the Corn Belt gear up for record harvest thanks to near-perfect weather, they brace for a financial hit as a result of falling prices over recent months.

“The overall picture from the USDA report is that the harvest is progressing very well and if that continues, we are only going to see lower prices,” said Phin Ziebell, Agribusiness Economist at National Australia Bank.

Recent U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates show the corn harvest was about 24 percent complete and 74 percent of the crop was in good to excellent condition.

The week of October 13, corn prices fell from a five-week high. Corn for December delivery fell 1 percent to $3.535 per bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

Agriculture economists already are estimating how many acres of corn are needed in 2015. A University of Illinois expert says “one way to approach the question of how many corn acres are needed in 2015 is to determine the combination of production, consumption, and year-ending stocks that would result in a 2015-16 marketing year average farm price closer to the cost of production, estimated to be in the low $4-range (assuming trend yields) in much of the Corn Belt.”

Farmers gear up for record harvest while bracing for lower prices

Minden, NE – This fall, farmers could haul in 4 billion bushels of soybeans and 14.4 billion bushels of corn. Corn and soybean prices have been falling for months. From the cab of his John Deere combine, Gene Trausch watches the machine churn through a field of soybeans. “We out-produced ourselves,” said Trausch, who raises raise corn, soybeans and wheat near Minden in central Nebraska.

Corn prices fall due to drier weather

Corn prices fell from their 5-week high as forecasts of drier weather have allowed producers to resume their harvests. Give Your Trading the Backbone it Needs to Succeed, The Market’s Spine is a free 34-page futures technical analysis guide that details how to read the backbone of recent market activity, explains a handful of indicators that are well known to institutional and fund traders, and more.

How many acres of corn needed in 2015?

Darrell Good, University of Illinois With a trend yield near 162.5 bushels in 2015, 80.46 million acres would need to be harvested to produce 13.075 billion bushels of corn. That magnitude of harvested acreage for grain would require about 88.26 million acres of corn to be planted for all purposes.