January 20, 2009
US corn forecast for North Dakota may be off by millions
The US estimation of North Dakota's 2008 corn output may be off the mark as the forecast includes millions of bushels covered by snow and may never end up in farmers' bins.
Farmers in eastern North Dakota last year were unable to harvest about 10 percent of their corn crop due to heavy rains followed by early snow.
As many as 20 million bushels of corn may still be in the fields, said Tom Lilja, executive director of the North Dakota Corn Growers Association.
Even if the remaining corn is harvested, about 3 million bushels are likely to be lost by spring because of the weather. If none of it gets harvested, the official USDA estimation of a record 285 million bushels could be off by 20 million bushels.
However, there would be little effect on commodity markets even if the estimation if off by 10 percent as North Dakota produces less than 3 percent of the national figure of 12.1 billion bushels.
