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A USDA report shows head-scratching numbers in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York.

Chris Torres, Editor, American Agriculturist

April 5, 2022

3 Min Read
corn and soybean plants
MORE BEANS PLEASE? Ohio and Michigan farmers will be following the trend of less corn and more soybeans planted this season. But in New York and Pennsylvania, growers are cutting both corn and soybean acres, leaving one to wonder where the acres have gone.JJ Gouin/bgwalker/Getty Images

Most farmers in Michigan, the Northeast and Ohio will be following the national trend of more soybeans than corn this year. At least that’s what they’ve indicated to USDA.

If you missed out on last week’s Prospective Plantings report from USDA, it showed farmers are planting a record number of soybean acres this year and surpassing corn acreage — 91 million acres vs. 89.5 million acres.

Every state in the American Agriculturist region is planting less corn, while most states — except for Pennsylvania and New York — are planting either more soybean acres or the same as last year.

Prospective plantings for Northeast, Michigan and Ohio table

Why are farmers planting less corn than soybeans? A presentation on market dynamics by Farm Futures grain markets analyst Jaqueline Holland on Thursday points to much higher input prices, especially fertilizer, for corn; a lower-than-expected South American soybean crop; and good demand for soybeans as reasons farmers are favoring soybeans.

In fact, Holland pointed to Farm Futures surveys done at the end of last year that showed many farmers were intending to switch to beans and had done so quite early, making the Prospective Plantings report less surprising to her than others.

Ohio and Michigan both followed national trends with less corn and more soybean acres.

In Ohio, hay acres are down 1%, while wheat acreage is up 5%.

In Michigan, hay acres are up 1%, but wheat acreage is down 23% to 470,000 acres. Chris Betz, corporate hedger and merchandiser for Michigan Agricultural Commodities, says planting conditions were too wet for many growers to get wheat acreage in last fall, especially across the southern half of the Lower Peninsula, and this likely explains the big drop-off.

Other small grains, though, are also down — oats are down 27%, and barley is down 10%.

Robert Geers, vice president of merchandising for Michigan Agricultural Commodities, says June’s crop production report, the first big crop production of the growing season, should paint a clearer picture of where acres not planted last fall will likely be going this summer. While soybean acres are up, Geers says they don’t make up for the overall lost acreage across all crops.

Pennsylvania and New York each bucked the national trend of less corn and more soybean acres. Empire State farmers are also planting 8% less hay, 13% less wheat and 36% less oats.

Zach Harding, manager of Northeast grains for The Andersons, says he expected corn acres to decline because of high fertilizer prices and low seed availability. But the loss in soybean acres is puzzling, he says. Couple that with the loss of hay acreage and other small grains, and Harding suspects land is either being lost to development or other specialty crops.

Other states in alphabetical order:

Corn

  • Connecticut, 23,000 acres, down 4%

  • Maine, 28,000 acres, down 7%

  • New Jersey, 76,000 acres, down 3%

  • West Virginia, 49,000 acres, down 4%

Hay

  • Connecticut, 46,000 acres, no change

  • Delaware, 11,000 acres, no change

  • Maine 120,000 acres, no change

  • Maryland, 210,000 acres, up 6%

  • Massachusetts, 55,000 acres, no change

  • Michigan, 800,000 acres, up 1%

  • New Jersey, 96,000 acres, down 2%

  • New York, 1.07 million acres, down 8%

  • Ohio, 860,000 acres, down 1%

  • Pennsylvania, 1.18 million, down 3%

  • Vermont, 150,000 acres, down 6%

  • West Virginia, 500,000 acres, down 3%

Barley

  • Delaware, 21,000 acres, no change

  • Maine, 12,000 acres, no change

  • Maryland, 28,000 acres, down 15%

  • Michigan, 9,000 acres, down 10%

  • New York, 9,000 acres, even

  • Pennsylvania, 48,000 acres, up 7%

Oats

  • Maine, 25,000 acres, up 14%

  • Michigan, 40,000 acres, down 27%

  • New York, 35,000 acres, down 36%

  • Ohio, 45,000 acres, no change

  • Pennsylvania, 87,000 acres, up 2%

Wheat

  • Delaware, 60,000 acres, no change

  • Maryland, 305,000 acres, down 12%

  • Michigan, 470,000 acres, down 23%

  • New Jersey, 26,000 acres, up 13%

  • New York, 135,000 acres, down 13%

  • Ohio, 610,000 acres, up 5%

  • Pennsylvania, 275,000 acres, up 2%

About the Author(s)

Chris Torres

Editor, American Agriculturist

Chris Torres, editor of American Agriculturist, previously worked at Lancaster Farming, where he started in 2006 as a staff writer and later became regional editor. Torres is a seven-time winner of the Keystone Press Awards, handed out by the Pennsylvania Press Association, and he is a Pennsylvania State University graduate.

Torres says he wants American Agriculturist to be farmers' "go-to product, continuing the legacy and high standard (former American Agriculturist editor) John Vogel has set." Torres succeeds Vogel, who retired after 47 years with Farm Progress and its related publications.

"The news business is a challenging job," Torres says. "It makes you think outside your small box, and you have to formulate what the reader wants to see from the overall product. It's rewarding to see a nice product in the end."

Torres' family is based in Lebanon County, Pa. His wife grew up on a small farm in Berks County, Pa., where they raised corn, soybeans, feeder cattle and more. Torres and his wife are parents to three young boys.

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