Heavy US corn market seeks to avoid acreage bomb on Thursday

But U.S. farmers’ planting intentions have been notoriously hard to predict in recent years, and crop prices are much lower than both a year ago and last fall, when many producers make planting decisions.

Chicago corn and soybean futures have popped this month, but prices will be tested again on Thursday when the U.S. government publishes its survey-based planting estimates, known to set the tone for the markets headed into the U.S. growing season.

On average, analysts expect 2024 U.S. corn plantings at 91.776 million acres, down 3% from 2023 but up slightly from the 91 million acres the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected for 2024 back in February.

Soybean plantings are seen at 86.53 million acres, up 3.5% from last year but below USDA’s February projection of 87.5 million. The estimates are due on Thursday at noon EDT (1600 GMT).

More corn or no?

Ideas that U.S. corn supplies could reach multi-decade highs following the 2024 harvest have weighed heavily on corn prices. Excessively large corn acres relative to trade estimates on Thursday could hurt chances for a spring rally, especially since large speculators have recently covered a chunk of short positions.

But 2024 may not fit the mold of other recent years that featured bearish corn plantings in March. For one, new-crop corn prices are relatively weak versus soybeans, and all the recent years with shockingly large corn acres are ones where corn was a bit stronger in comparison.

Additionally, the bearish March corn acreage years, including 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2023, all followed years where corn plantings were relatively low. U.S. farmers last year planted 94.6 million acres of corn, the most since 2013.

Back-to-back years of huge corn acres are rare. The last time corn area was notably above the running five-year average in consecutive seasons was 2012 and 2013, years when prices were similarly strong during planting decision time. Analysts’ 2024 corn area guess is 0.7% above the recent average of 91.1 million acres, a deviation considered non-notable in this analysis.

Only three of 25 polled analysts expect corn acres at 92.5 million or above, but the bearish scenario cannot be ruled out, especially in a year following a major market adjustment. Last October, new-crop 2024 soybean futures were relatively strong versus 2024 corn, as is currently the case.

But new-crop corn was trading more than 10% higher in October versus early March, when the survey was taken. Although beans were 8% stronger in October versus March, U.S. farmers notoriously love to plant corn and hope huge yields will offset costs, and corn independently of soybeans may have looked better last fall than it does now.

Trade trends

In the last eight years, March corn acres fell outside the range of analyst estimates six times (not 2018 or 2023), though the bias was 50-50 on whether acres landed above or below the average trade guess.

March soybean acres have a much more distinct trend, coming in above trade estimates only three times in the last 15 years (2014, 2017 and 2022). The 2022 instance should have never happened as final acres came in much lower than both USDA’s March estimate and the average March trade guess.

That was probably linked to the trade's massive over-estimation of corn plantings in March 2022, as high corn prices had analysts ignoring the huge, acreage-curbing surge in fertilizer prices that started the previous fall.

The last three times March soybean acres landed outside the range of trade estimates were 2018, 2017 and 2012. Karen Braun is a market analyst for Reuters. Views expressed above are her own.