The Acreage Puzzle

The logical starting point for the analysis is the total acreage planted to principal crops in the U.S. Principal crops include planted acres of corn, sorghum, oats, barley, rye, winter wheat, durum wheat, other spring wheat, rice, soybeans, peanuts, sunflower, cotton, dry edible beans, potatoes, canola, proso millet, and sugarbeets as well as harvested acreage for hay, tobacco, and sugarcane. The total should also include double-cropped acres and unharvested acreage of small grains planted as cover crops. The acreage data based on these definitions for 2007-2015 is presented in Table 1. The estimates for 2007-2014 are from the USDA’s Crop Production Annual Summary report, as later revised. The estimate of this overall total for 2015 from the just released Prospective Plantings report is 324.8 million acres (Figure 1). The estimate is based on the USDA's March Agricultural Survey of approximately 84,000 producers that was conducted between February 27 and March 18, 2015. The estimate of intended acreage of principal crops is 2.0 million acres smaller and 10.4 million acres larger than the largest and smallest acreage of the previous eight years. Intentions exceed the average plantings of the previous eight years by 3.4 million acres.