February 5, 2007

Pro Farmer calls for 10.9-11.8 million more US corn acres

Pro Farmer, an agricultural newsletter, released a survey Friday (Feb 2) that calls for US corn acres in 2007 to increase by 10.9 million to 11.8 million acres and soybean acres to drop by 8.6 million to 9.4 million acres.

Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures rallied Friday and broke several contract highs on talk about the results, floor sources said. Many previous industry estimates had called for corn acres to increase by 6 million to 8 million acres.

Farmers are expected to plant more corn acres this year in part because of increased demand for ethanol.

In 2006, US farmers planted about 78.3 million corn acres and 75.5 million soybean acres.

The new Pro Farmer survey includes responses received from newsletter members in 23 states over the past two weeks, editor Chip Flory said. The members tend to be "more responsive to market incentives than your average guy out there," Flory said.

"The move toward corn planting indicated by the survey may turn out to be a little heavy compared to reality," he said.

Pro Farmer figures up to four million corn acres outside the corn belt will come into production, Flory said. That meant combined corn and soybean acreage in 2007 had to be within four million acres of last year's combined corn and soybean acreage, he said.