The U.S. corn harvest is now 34% complete, according to USDA’s October 9 Crop Progress report. Corn harvest pace increased by 13 percentage points from last year and 9 percentage points from the five-year average. U.S. corn producers have harvested 5 billion bushels of corn so far.
llinois corn producers continue to lead the harvest, with 1.6 billion of those bushels and 63% of the harvest complete. Iowa corn producers, with 15% complete, have just begun the corn harvest , but have already harvested nearly 400 million bushels. Figure 1 illustrates the year-over-year percentage point change in corn harvest pace.
USDA’s crop progress report also shows the U.S. soybean harvest moving along steadily, with 32% of the soybean crop harvested. In contrast to the corn crop harvest pace, the soybean harvest pace is down 2 percentage points from last year and down 4 percentage points from the five-year average.
The current harvest pace is also down from analysts’ estimates of 35% of the soybean harvest complete by this point. Soybean producers have harvested 1.5 billion bushels, with Illinois soybean producers harvesting 451 million of those bushels alone. Figure 2 illustrates the year-over-year percentage change in soybean production.
Contact:
Megan Nelson
Economic Analyst
American Farm Bureau Federation
(202) 406-3629
[email protected]
