USDA predicts increase in corn acreage and unexpected decrease in wheat acreage in the US in 2025

The USDA's Prospective Plantings report for 2025 unexpectedly showed a decrease in the estimated area to be sown to wheat but an increase in corn, with corn expected to grow by 5% and soybeans to decrease by 4%. Despite analysts' expectations, the USDA also anticipates a decrease in all types of wheat by 2%. The quarterly Grain Stocks report showed changes in the market inventories of major crops as of March 1. The market's response was relatively calm, with slight fluctuations in futures prices for corn and soybeans.

In the Prospective Plantings report released on March 31 (with forecasts of the area sown in the United States in 2025), USDA experts unexpectedly lowered the estimate of the area sown to wheat, but increased the forecast of the area sown to corn. Corn is expected to grow by 5% from 90.6 to 95.3 million acres (38.6 million hectares) compared to 2024, which is 1% higher than the average estimate of analysts, and soybeans will decrease by 4% from 87.1 to 83.5 million acres, while analysts estimated them at 83.76 million acres. Analysts expected that due to the decrease in the area sown to soybeans, farmers would increase the area under wheat to 46.5 million acres. However, USDA experts believe that the area under all types of wheat will decrease by 2% compared to 2024 from 46.1 to 45.4 million acres, which will be the second lowest figure since 2019. At the same time, winter wheat will be sown on 33.3 million acres (0.6 million acres less than analysts expected), spring wheat – 10 ...