October 13, 2005

Hurricane, drought did not slow US corn, soy output

Despite the hurricanes last month and the drought that persisted in the Plains, weather has failed to slow US's corn, soybean, the USDA said Oct 12.

In fact, the forecast for most crops improved from September's projections in the monthly crop report.

The corn crop is now expected to be a record second largest. Analysts have increased their forecast by 218 million bushels from last month to 10.9 billion bushels.

For soybeans, the forecast is for nearly 3 billion bushels, up 111 million bushels from the September projection.

For livestock, lower than expected slaughter and marketing in the past three months has reduced the forecast for beef and pork production, and the forecast has also dropped for chicken production because of slower than expected growth, the USDA said.