Washington, DC
June 30, 2009

Total U.S. crop area is down 1.2 percent from last year, but soybean acres are up 2.3 percent and corn acres are up 1.2 percent according to the Acreage report released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Overall, farmers planted 320.9 million acres to principal crops in 2009. This is 3.9 million acres less than last year, but 3.9 million acres more than they indicated in the March 2009 Prospective Plantings report. The most significant acreage declines were in North Dakota, down 2.1 million, and Texas, down 570,000 acres.

Despite the overall decline in planted area, farmers sowed a record-high 77.5 million acres to soybeans, up 1.8 million acres from last year and up 1.5 million acres, or almost 2 percent, from March. Compared with 2008, soybean area is up more than 200,000 acres in five states: Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Farmers planted 87 million corn acres in 2009, up 1 million acres from last year. This is the second-largest corn acreage in more than 60 years, behind 2007. Despite wet weather in many growing areas, farmers reported that 97 percent of intended corn acreage was planted by early June, compared with the 10-year average of 98 percent.

NASS acreage estimates are based on surveys conducted during the first two weeks of June on approximately 11,000 segments of land and from a sample of approximately 73,500 farm operators across the United States. Principal crops included in the survey are corn, sorghum, oats, barley, winter wheat, rye, durum wheat, other spring wheat, rice, soybeans, peanuts, sunflower, cotton, dry edible beans, potatoes, sugar beets, canola and proso millet, as well as harvested area for all hay, tobacco and sugar cane.

The August 12 Crop Production report will contain the first 2009 estimates of corn and soybean yield and production. All NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov.

Website: http://www.nass.usda.gov/

Published: June 30, 2009