Questions About Corn Acreage

So what about harvested acreage of corn in 2012?

“We are anticipating that due to the severity of this year’s drought, the difference between planted acreage and acreage harvested for grain will be at least as large as in 1980, 1988, and 2002,” Good says. “Differences in those years averaged 10 million acres, in a range of 9.47-11.1 million acres.  If planted acreage was also slightly less than the NASS June estimate, that experience points to acreage harvested for grain of about 86 million, nearly 1.4 million less than the June NASS estimate,” he says.

Under this acreage scenario, Good says a national average corn yield near the August forecast of 123.4 bu. would result in a crop near 10.6 billion bushels.

“If the average yield is also 4-5 bu. lower than the August forecast, as we suspect, the crop may be near 10.2 billion bushels, almost 600 million bushels less than the NASS August forecast,” Good says. “A crop of that size would require a year-over-year decline in consumption of U.S. corn of nearly 1.8 billion bushels, or about 14%.

“Corn prices would likely have to remain high for an extended period in order to motivate such a large decline in consumption,” Good says. “The USDA’s Sept. 12 Crop Productionreport will provide an important update on the likely magnitude of harvested acreage, yield, and production, and bring the rationing question into clearer focus,” he says.