U.S. crops on track for bumper harvest

CELINA - U.S. farmers are on track to reap record corn and soybean harvests, an area ag official announced at Thursday's monthly Mercer County agriculture breakfast.

Speaker John Leighty, a grain merchandiser for Trupointe cooperative in Botkins, was among a group of people who recently attended the annual National Pro Farmer Crop Tour to survey the nation's crops.

"Beans are predicted 72 percent good to excellent nationwide," Leighty said. "That's phenomenal and that's an improvement of 2 percentage points from two weeks ago."

Corn numbers also look good, he added.

"This could be the first year we might have a mind-blowing corn crop of 175 bushels (average) nationwide," he said. "Two hundred bushels used to be a pie in the sky. You hoped to get that in one field, but now they're predicting that as almost an average."

Figures are based on data from INTL FC Stone, a Fortune 500 company providing information on various commodities, he said.

Leighty called the corn crop vibrant due to August rains and good genetics. Cool weather this year improved kernel depth, which will translate into higher test weights, he said.

Bumper crops, however, won't mean big profits this year, ag industry leaders say. Corn and soybean prices have plummeted as global markets anticipate the bumper crops. The nation's farmers are predicted to profit much less than in the last five or six years - the most profitable in history for U.S. corn and soybean growers due to high market prices for commodities.

"We have an oversupply of grain in the world," Leighty said. "We're coming out of a six-year window of $6 to $8 (per bushel) corn and we're encouraging other places in the world to grow corn like the Ukraine, China and South America."

Leighty predicted fewer acres of corn will be planted next year.
"What's going to happen is U.S. farmers will plant less corn because they can't afford to plant $3.50 (per bushel) corn, so this (oversupply of corn) will fix itself, but it will take some time," he said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects record corn and soybean harvests for Ohio and the nation as a whole this year. Ohio farmers are expected to near their 2013 output of both crops, which also was a record, USDA said.

The fair summer weather helped Ohio's corn and soybeans rebound after farmers experienced a cold, wet spring that delayed planting for some and washed out spots in some fields.

High prices for beef and pork due to increased demand have helped offset additional costs incurred by livestock growers who need grain to feed their animals, he said.

"There's been a high demand for meat, especially in China, so beef prices have been high and it made sense to feed them $8 (per bushel) corn," Leighty said.

The next ag breakfast meeting is 7:30 a.m. Oct. 2 in the first-floor conference room at the Central Service Building in Celina.