Corn Futures and the USDA March Reports – 3/28/2024
US farmers plan to reduce corn planted area in 2024 to 90 million acres from the 94 million acres planted a year ago. The accompanying US corn supply/usage table is based on USDA’s baseline forecasts, published last month, with the March planting survey acreage substituted (91 million acres in the baseline forecasts compared with the 90 million projected from the March, 2024 survey).
Note that the current data would suggest a 2.7 billion bushel US corn carryout in 2025 which is more than adequate to cover end of crop year needs. Keep in mind the USDA’s 2024 US corn yield assumption would be record large. Our US corn yield model suggests USDA’s 2024 yield assumption (181 bushels per harvested acre) would require modestly better corn belt growing conditions than prevailed in the past two seasons.
| US Corn Supply/Usage Million Bushels & acres | ||||
| 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 | |
| USDA March | USDA March | |||
| Area Planted | 92.9 | 88.2 | 94.6 | 90.0 |
| Area Harvested | 85 | 78.7 | 86.5 | 83.1 |
| Yield per Harv. Ac. | 176.7 | 173.4 | 177.3 | 181.0 |
| Beginning Stocks | 1,235 | 1,377 | 1,360 | 2,172 |
| Production | 15,018 | 13,651 | 15,342 | 15,041 |
| Imports | 24 | 39 | 25 | 25 |
| Supply, Total | 16,277 | 15,066 | 16,727 | 17,238 |
| Feed and Residual | 5,671 | 5,487 | 5,675 | 5,800 |
| Food, Seed & Industrial | 6,757 | 6,558 | 6,780 | 6,710 |
| Ethanol & by-products | 5,320 | 5,176 | 5,375 | 5,300 |
| Domestic, Total | 12,427 | 12,045 | 12,455 | 12,510 |
| Exports | 2,472 | 1,661 | 2,100 | 2,050 |
| Use, Total | 14,900 | 13,706 | 14,555 | 14,560 |
| Ending Stocks | 1,377 | 1,360 | 2,172 | 2,678 |
| Carryout/Usage | 9% | 10% | 15% | 18% |
| *March 2024 USDA Estimates. & Projections based on March Planting Survey | ||||
USDA also released US March 1 stocks data on March 28, 2024. The major unknown in calculated March US corn stocks is feed residual. Our calculations based on the March data suggest US corn feed usage is running ahead of the USDA;s 2023/2024 crop year forecast of 5675 million bushels.. The 2023/2024 (old crop) US corn carryout will likely be modestly less burdensome than USDA currently assumes.
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