Insights for Supply, Ending Stocks, and Prices from FSA Acreage Data

On Monday August 12, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the USDA released new planted acreage estimates for major crops in its monthly Crop Production report. For the first time, NASS used data on crop acreage enrolled in farm programs from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) to update in August its planted acreage estimates for corn and soybeans. In previous years, NASS only updated acreage estimates for corn and soybeans using FSA data in September. This change reflects that, in recent years, nearly all planted acres are enrolled in FSA farm programs and those acres are nearly all enrolled by August. The Crop Production report lowered the corn planted area estimate from 91.5 to 90.7 million acres and increased the soybean estimate from 86.1 to 87.1 million acres.