USDA's October crop report raised Nebraska's corn yield estimate by 11 bushels an acre to 188, and that one state accounted for much of the national increase that sent corn futures down about 5%, with soybeans and wheat also lower. One Missouri farmer said the move cost him about $40 an acre on unsold corn; for 2,000 unpriced acres, that would be about $80,000 in a day, Pro Farmer reports.
The scrutiny is over the field samples, collected by the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture for USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS): irrigated fields appear to have made up only 10% of the September sample. USDA had forecast 183 bushels for Nebraska in August, so the October figure more than recovered the September drop.
Seth Meyer, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri and a former USDA chief economist, said October changes are built into the process, as forecasts move from field counts to a mix of field counts and farmers' actual harvest results, and that large changes become less likely from here. He does not think the irrigated-versus-dryland weighting explains the 11-bushel rise, but said an incomplete sample raises the chance of error, and that NASS should explain why enumerators did not reach irrigated fields.
Farm Journal economist Chip Flory said only 15% of Nebraska's corn had been harvested by 4 October, so enumerators' field observations still carried heavy weight, and that because other states publish only one data point, a similar sampling gap elsewhere would be invisible. Darren Frye of Water Street Solutions, noting that Nebraska supplied about 1.2 bushels of the national increase and that ear counts rose by 1,700 an acre, called the numbers "a little bit sketchy" for a crop rated 46% good-to-excellent.
South Dakota (up 6 bushels to 151), Kansas (up 9), Texas (up 8) and North Dakota (up 2) also rose. Frye said the market will watch whether USDA revises the figures in November.
Source: Pro Farmer
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