In August the windstorm that blasted across Iowa — “basically a 40-mile-wide tornado,” in the words of Governor Kim Reynolds — wiped out 9% of the crop in the nation’s No. 1 corn state and obliterated the chances for a record-large corn harvest nationwide, said the USDA.
According to Successful Farming, farmers will see notably higher season-average prices for the smaller, but still ample, crop that remains in the field.
Now forecast at 14.9 billion bushels, the corn crop would be the second-largest on record and would be worth $4.75 billion more at the farm gate, selling for an average $3.50 a bushel, than the record-large crop forecast a month ago that was expected to fetch $3.10 a bushel, according to USDA data.
The smaller crop would prevent a burdensome expansion of corn supplies although the U.S. inventory would increase somewhat.
