(Wall Street Journal) -U.S. farmers are expected to plant more corn and soybeans this year even as their storage bins remain stuffed with rising inventory, according to analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday will release two closely watched reports on domestic crop stockpiles and farmers’ planting intentions, against a backdrop of historically high global supplies and pressure on U.S. exports caused in part by the strength of the U.S. dollar.
“We had a huge [soybean] crop last year,” said Karl Setzer, an analyst with brokerage MaxYield Cooperative in West Bend, Iowa, who added that while U.S. soybean production increased in 2015, the pace of exports has trailed year-ago levels.
Federal forecasters are expected to estimate domestic soybean stockpiles at the beginning of the month had climbed 18% to 1.57 billion bushels after last year’s record crop, according to the median forecast of analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal.
Farmers have “a fair amount of soybeans they’re sitting on,” said Mr. Setzer.
The USDA is also expected to peg inventories of corn at a higher level than the same time last year, according to the survey.
Corn reserves on Mar. 1 are forecast to have increased 1% to 7.82 billion bushels from a year earlier, according to analysts. Around 1.36 billion bushels of wheat are estimated to remain in storage bins, a 19% jump over year-ago levels as export demand was hit by tougher competition from producers in western Europe and around the Black Sea region.
The appreciation of the U.S. dollar against most major agricultural competitors makes U.S. grain relatively more expensive for overseas buyers.
The USDA is set to release its quarterly grain stockpiles report at noon EDT Thursday.
The agency is also expected to issue its 2016 outlook for crop plantings, with many farmers likely to devote more acres to corn this year.
Analysts expect USDA to estimate that farmers will plant 90.05 million acres of corn, up about 2% from nearly 88 million last year.
The USDA likely will peg soybean acres at 82.95 million acres, up 0.4% from 82.65 million last year, while all-wheat acreage likely will be estimated at 51.66 million acres, down 5% from 54.64 million in 2015, according to the survey.
“You’ll lose less on corn,” said Joel Karlin, a market analyst with grain miller Western Milling in Goshen, Calif., noting that some growers may boost corn acres this year because if favorable weather graces the Farm Belt during the planting season, many can “probably get a bigger return on corn than soybeans.”
