(KMAland) — The corn crop in Iowa is better than expected and it shows. The soybeans are pretty good, too. Chad Hart, Iowa State University Extension Agricultural Economist says harvest in Iowa is going well.
Like most the rest of the country, it’s been a little bit ahead of average, a little bit behind what we saw last year in terms of the speed at which we’re moving, but the yields have been much better than what we saw last year. We’re looking at USDA’s estimated at 201 bushels per acre on the corn side. A lot of the data that I’m hearing from farmers would suggest, yep, that’s probably a pretty good number. We’re seeing similar strength as we look at the soybeans across the state. Good yields have been coming in despite some of the weather problems that we had.”
As for commodity markets, Hart says the market is trying to figure out the big picture.
“The market is trying to figure out, one it knows there’s these those big crop coming down the line, but then looking at the usage pattern, are we seeing the types of purchases that we saw at this time last year. Well, if you think about the rally in a lot of our ag markets that really started to occur last August, September, October, a lot of that was driven by international demand, a lot of those export sales and we’re seeing somewhat similar patterns. Corn, very strong export sales thus far this year, soybeans, we’re off a little bit compared to last year.”
Hart says he’s closely watching soybeans.
“We’re looking at that sales on corn that has been highly supportive. And I’m looking at just the sales volume right now, we’re basically on the same pace as we were last year. It’s soybeans where we’ve seen that deficiency, but the data within the last week is given some reason for hope we’re seeing some recovery there as well.”
Read More: Commodity Markets Discussion with Chad Hart | News