Last month, I advised anticipating a record (not trend line, but a record) 2024 national average corn yield in your marketing strategy. Then, in USDA’s annual production summary, the national average corn yield increased 2.4 bu. per acre from November to a record 177.3 bu. per acre. To get to that number, USDA took 583,000 of the worst-yielding acres out of the harvested acreage tally.
The national average soybean yield increased 0.7 bu. per acre from November, due in part to a 435,000-acre cut to harvested acres. At 50.6 bu. per acre, the 2023 soybean crop is tied for the fourth highest on record.
Those changes turned into a record corn crop of 15.43 billion bushels (up 108 million from the November estimate) and a soybean crop of 4.165 billion bushels (up 36 million from the November estimate). Carryover estimates for 2023/24 increased 31 million bushels for corn and 35 million bushels for soybeans.
2024 Expectations
After the supply and demand update, traders turned their attention back to South American growing conditions, and conversations about 2024 corn and soybean acres gained importance. Corn plantings in 2023 totaled 94.6 million acres, and many market-watchers expect that number to fall to about 91 million planted acres this year (a decrease of 3.5 million).
Soybean acres totaled 83.6 million last year. Due to increased U.S. crush capacity, many analysts warn this won’t be enough to satisfy domestic and export demand while holding 2024/25 soybean carryover above 200 million bushels. General expectations are that soybean plantings will increase “at least” 3 million acres from 2023.
Winter wheat seedings for 2024 are down 2.27 million acres from last year, and soft red winter wheat seedings are down 500,000 — reducing the number of acres available for double-crop soybeans.
lack of available acres
Last year was “corn heavy,” and crop rotation considerations alone point corn acres down. But new-crop corn and soybean futures have not provided the incentive for a “landslide” from corn to soybeans in 2024. That could still happen, but the potential revenue generated by new-crop corn in the middle of January still favored a conservative drop from last year (2 million acres). That would further limit acres available for soybean plantings.
The spring insurance price, the average of December corn futures and November soybean futures, closes in February. A lot can change based on that price, but soybeans either need to attract more acres with stronger revenue potential or corn needs to dump acres via lower revenue. Until then, corn will face the headwind of another forecast for increasing U.S. carryover. As more crush capacity comes online, the soybean market might realize it waited too long to bid for 2024 soybean acres.
