On September 12 USDA released their September crop production report. They estimated 90.047 million acres of corn to be harvested for grain, the largest amount of corn acres harvested since 1933.
ProFarmer analysts reviewed changes in USDA’s acreage forecasts for the last 30 years. This estimate is 3.27 million acres higher than their June acreage estimate, the largest increase from June to September since at least 1994, the farthest our analysis looked back. The average difference between USDA’s June and September acreage forecast for corn is a downward change of 614,000. This surprise late-season upward adjustment of acres cancelled out the slight yield decline that was estimated in the report to result in a roughly 100 million bushel increase in overall production.
In a post on X, USDA-NASS spokesman Lance Honig indicated that this change was driven mainly by an increase in FSA certified acres that were not available in June, and confirmed that the June survey indications were much lower than reality. The agency plans to investigate why this year’s indications came in so low.