Big harvest won’t help farmers

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A record corn and soybean harvest will do little to help farmers already struggling with low prices and high production costs, a farm economist said Friday after the latest crop projections were released.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast is for the second-largest corn harvest on record and a new record for soybeans.

Neither comes as a surprise because more acres were planted this year, and earlier forecasts also predicted a strong crop, said Lance Honig, chief of the crops branch for the Washington-based NASS, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Corn production is estimated at 13 billion bushels, up 8 percent from 2008. If that holds up, it will be the second-highest production behind 2007, when 13.04 billion bushels were harvest.

Ohio is expected to produce an estimated 518 million bushels of corn, up 23 percent from last year. Corn yields are expected to average 166 bushels per acre.

Gary Schnitkey, a farm economist at the University of Illinois, said record production usually results in lower prices farmers get for their crop.

“This year we’re actually looking at pretty low incomes for farmers, not only with the fall of commodity prices which began last year at this time, but at the same time the costs farmers have had to pay have been high, particularly fertilizer,” Schniktey said.

But the prospect of lower corn prices shouldn’t send consumers scurrying to the store in hopes of getting a break on their box of corn flakes, Schnitkey said.

“For the consumer, it doesn’t mean a lot,” he said. “A lot of agricultural products, the amount in a certain product is very small.

“It’s a big deal to producers, but by the time it reaches the end consumer it has less of an impact.”