Indigo Agriculture, a company dedicated to harnessing nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet, updates its corn and soybean production forecasts ahead of the USDA’s September World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE).
Since its August report, Indigo’s corn production forecast has increased 4.2% to 12.5B bushels, while its soybean production forecast has fallen 8% to 3.4B bushels.
These updated forecasts remain below the August WASDE report. Indigo’s corn production estimate of 12.5 billion bushels is 1.4 billion bushels (10%) below USDA’s August report. Its soybean forecast of 3.4 billion bushels is 0.3 billion bushels (8%) below USDA’s August estimate.
To arrive at these insights, Indigo applies the latest machine learning techniques to daily images gathered from satellites, weather data, and crop condition reports, garnering the most up-to-date picture of the world’s food system.
These techniques allowed Indigo to identify 8.6M acres of corn and soybeans in the U.S. that are more than a month delayed in growth, with an additional 13.3M acres that are anywhere from two to four weeks delayed. An early or even average freeze date would jeopardize the final development of these crops, potentially lowering production below Indigo’s current forecast. The company will continue following these trends and update its production forecast next month.
“With our Atlas technology, billions of data points are translated into meaningful and actionable insights for farmers and their commercial partners,” says Barclay Rogers, VP of Business Development for Indigo’s GeoInnovation team. “This is not the first time the platform’s forecasts have been far below the USDA’s projections, months in advance of closeout. We are providing this information to farmers to help them make critical decisions informed by Indigo’s state-of-the-art technology.”
Atlas combines remote sensing, ground equipment, historical, and weather data to track the dynamic variables that affect crop health. The technology is also capable of characterizing local soil conditions, drawing field boundaries, and discerning subtle differences in crop performance across regions. The immediacy and accuracy of this information supports key decision making for growers, traders, investors, buyers, grain marketers, government agencies, and other industry players.
"In a season where there's more uncertainty than ever before, better tools are needed to understand production," says Rodney Connor, Sr. Director of Global Markets Intelligence and Analysis at Indigo. "Checking in on Atlas on a weekly basis helps keep me on top of the latest changes in crop performance – and better understand how the market will move as a result."
To access Indigo’s September Production Forecast and discover other agricultural insights, click here.
