And, assuming improved weather conditions this year, compared with 2011 when heat during the sensitive pollination period sapped yields, the increase could foster a huge rise in corn production
"If Informa is right, and US yields in 2012 were to return to a trendline 160 bushels an acre, that would produce a monster crop of around 14bn bushels this autumn," David Norris, the UK-based agriculture blogger, said factoring in a typical 8% crop abandonment rate.
In metric terms, "that would be a whopping 41.6m tonnes more than in 2011, an increase of 13% and probably around twice the size of the entire production of Argentina this year".
'Acreage fear'
The Informa estimate came in some 1m acres higher than that from Farm Futures, but below estimates of 97.5m acres reportedly voiced at the American Farm Bureau's annual conference earlier this month.
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Key years for US corn sowings
1932: 113.024m acres, record high
1983: 60.207m acres, record low (since records began in 1919)
2007: 93.527m acres, post-World War II high
Source: USDA |
"The fear in the US is that corn acres balloon to 97m-98m acres," US Commodities said.
The extra area looks set to come in part from a switch from soybeans, for which Informa trimmed its forecast for US plantings by 40,000 acres to 74.568m acres.
This would represent a drop of some 400,000 acres year on year.
The degree to which farmers sow corn compared with soybeans is often seen reflecting the ratio of prices of new-crop corn to new-crop soybeans, with ratios above 2.5 favouring the oilseed, and below 2.0 the grain.
The ratio stood at 2.15 in late deals in New York, comparing November soybean futures with December corn.
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