U.S. Department of Agriculture officials plan to ?collect additional harvested acreage information for corn and soybeans in Iowa.” This new information will be featured in the upcoming Crop Production report, out September 11.
While we may not understand the full extent of damages until later, we have gotten a better idea of what to except from a widely publicized crop tour.
The Pro Farmer Crop Tour will soon conclude. Scouts will provide final estimates for Iowa and Minnesota this evening. Pro Farmer will then release its crop estimate tomorrow afternoon. Jim McCormick, of Ag Market, shares what is known thus far.
?The Pro Farmer Tour, in general, is showing a pretty solid crop out there. There?s still going to be debate: Is it plus or minus where the USDA?s numbers are. But the fact of the matter is, they?re not finding the disaster,” McCormick says. “Even the numbers out of western Iowa were down compared to where they were last year and the three-year average, but weren?t a disaster like people were envisioning, based on the drought monitor.?
McCormick does not deny, “there are bad spots.” He believes such areas, as well as storm damages will force the USDA to adjust its balance sheet.
“They’re going to be cutting back the harvested acreage. There’s no doubt about it,” McCormick says. “The other thing you’re going to see is (an) adjustment on the yield. Commercial contacts are telling us that they think the lost bushel are going to come in somewhere around the 250 million bushel level. The fact of the matter is, we’re not going to know the total damage of this disaster till harvest is complete.”
McCormick empathizes with producers facing a “long, drawn out harvest.” He encourages all to assess the cost of storage, in an effort to address reduced storage capacity.
“There are a lot of customers that had priced grain at elevators or planned to store it on the farm. Producers, look at what the cost of storage is going to be,” McCormick says. “It’s going to be all over the place, depending on your location. Some options are moving the grain off the farm, taking the money you have, then turn around and maybe buy options. May be less risky to re-own the grain going into next year.”
