By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

CHICAGO, Ill. — If 2007 was the Year of Corn in the United States, the soybean could become agriculture’s darling in 2008.

On Monday morning, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) published its annual Prospective Plantings report, as well as a Grain Stocks report. For the coming spring, the agency estimated U.S. farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn, down 8 percent from last year, when planted acres were at their highest since World War II.

The NASS also estimated growers will seed 74.8 million acres of soybeans, 18 percent more than last year but not quite at the record set in 2006. Unlike last year, when many states scaled back planting in favor of corn, NASS expects every soybean-producing state to plant at least as many acres as it did in 2007 – and in most states, many more acres.

As for looming lower ending stocks for corn, “We really haven’t changed anything after this report,” said Don Roose, co-founder of US Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.

He was referring to the NASS Grain Stocks report citing 6.86 billion bushels of U.S. corn on hand as of March 1. According to CME/Chicago Board of Trade spokesperson Mary Haffenberg, this is below market analysts’ estimate of 7.08 billion bushels, even though the USDA’s number is up 13 percent from a year ago.

Terry Roggensack, principal owner and co-founder of The Hightower Report in Chicago, added in 2007, farmers produced just over 12.2 billion bushels of corn, against a domestic usage estimate of more than 13 billion bushels.

If one plugs last year’s yield of 154.9 bu./acre into anticipated planting for 2008, he said the United States will lose corn. He anticipated $6.20-$6.55 December corn.

According to the International Grains Council’s (IGC) March 28 Grain Market Report, worldwide corn production is forecast at 748 million tons, which Roggensack said is 24.3 million tons below usage for the current year. To break even, Roose said, “We’re going to have to have a couple or more million acres of (U.S.) corn, and soybeans probably drop that amount.”

He also predicted the USDA may have to ration corn for feed usage, ethanol production or both. Roggensack added because politics are more in favor of Brazilian-type than corn ethanol, it could force a rollback in the federal mandate for increased biofuel production.

On top of all this, Roggensack said export sales are “running well ahead” of the USDA’s anticipated pace and the U.S. hog inventory is 7.1 percent higher than a year ago. He and Roose agreed though soy oil is coming down off an all-time high market price, soy meal prices could gain on it in the next month or so because of tighter corn numbers for livestock feed.

“I think we’ve reached a fairly decent efficiency,” Roose said of feeding operations, noting there are simply more animals to be fed. Roggensack added some traditional alternatives – wheat, barley, oats – are also rather expensive right now, for feed.
“It’s not as if there’s a lot of good substitutes for corn,” he said.
The NASS’s tally of U.S. soybean stocks as of March 1 were 1.43 billion bushels, which was down 20 percent from a year ago but, as Haffenberg noted, higher than market analysts’ estimate of 1.36 billion bushels.

Wheat stocks were marked at 710 million bushels – again, lower than last year’s numbers, but 44 million higher than the market estimate, according to Haffenberg. At 63.8 million acres, wheat plantings for 2008 are 6 percent higher than last year.

Anticipated planting of corn in Farm World states is lower across the board; the highest percentage drop is expected in Tennessee, where it is not a major statewide crop.

For higher-producing states such as Iowa and Illinois, the projected drop is less than 8 percent in each.

Anticipated soybean planting is up for all seven states, again with the largest jump in Tennessee, of 39 percent over 2007. Iowa and Illinois are also the traditional higher-producing states of soybeans in this coverage area, and those farmers are planning to up planting by 15 and 7 percent, respectively.

Indiana growers should jump their planting by 17 percent, and Ohio farmers, by 8 percent.