DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is releasing its latest estimates on the size of this year’s corn and soybean crop. The weekly World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates report comes out Thursday morning and is expected to reflect a smaller corn harvest because many farmers in Iowa and surrounding states couldn’t get crops planted in wet fields. Soybean planting also was delayed.
Many agriculture experts expect the USDA to reduce its estimated corn crop to below the 14 billion bushels estimated a month ago. The harvest is still expected to be a record, beating the 13.1 billion bushels harvested in 2009. Many also will be watching closely the report on soybeans since supplies are running quite low. The report may signal how low the USDA expects supplies to dwindle.