After 2019’s nightmare of a year for farmers in the United States, AccuWeather is predicting a record-setting corn crop, as well as a substantial increase year-over-year in soybean production.
“The crop story for 2020 is the bounce-back in U.S. production for both corn and soybeans,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls.
AccuWeather is predicting U.S. corn production in 2020 will reach 15.486 billion bushels, based on 87 million acres harvested with 178 bushels per acre. (The total of 15.486 billion bushels equals 393.344 million metric tons.) The U.S. record for annual corn production is 15.15 billion bushels, set in 2016.
Last year, U.S. corn production was 13.69 billion bushels in 2019, the lowest since 2015 (13.601 billion bushels). The 13.1 percent increase AccuWeather is predicting for this year would be the largest year-over-year increase since 2013 (28.5 percent increase from 2012).
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In this May 23, 2019, file photo, a farmer plants soybeans in a field in Springfield, Neb. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File) |
AccuWeather also is predicting U.S. soybean production also will see a strong comeback, with production estimated to be 4.258 billion bushels, based on 83.5 million acres harvested with 51 bushels per acre. (The total of 4.258 billion bushels equals 115.886 million metric tons.)
That would be a 19.6 percent increase from 2019’s total of 3.558 billion bushels, which was the lowest total since 2013 (3.357 billion bushels). Such an increase would be the largest year-over-year improvement since 2004 (27.3 percent increase from 2003).
“We expect more soybean acres to be planted than in 2019 but still less than farmers were planting in the middle of the last decade,” Nicholls said.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will release its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) on Tuesday, Feb. 11.
“Weather-wise, AccuWeather is rather confident that farmers will not have the hindrances they had last year,” Nicholls said. “They got hit by just about everything – the wet and flooding in the beginning of the season and then the Upper Midwest had a snowstorm in October. Some of the farmers in North Dakota still haven’t completed the corn harvest from before the snow came.”
U.S. farmers, some still reeling from last year, could use good news heading into the upcoming growing season.
“After last year, it is hard to believe things could get any worse,” Ohio farmer Fred Traver told AccuWeather. “I am optimistic that we will have a better year.
“I think there is great potential for high yields because of the fact that we were able to get fertilizer and cover crops on a lot of ground that we normally would not have, had it been planted,” Traver added. “Plus, the fact that some ground went unplanted means there are nutrients left in the ground that went unused.”
Nebraska farmer Edwin C. Brummels, who has been in the agriculture industry since 1981, told AccuWeather, “Right now, it’s all dependent on March and April temperatures/moisture. We have an abundance of soil moisture, but if it warms up earlier than the last couple of years, I think we could be in great shape for planting.”
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