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Farmers are responding to market signals

As the 2015 planting season gets underway, University of Illinois professor John Newton says the US could be entering a third year of declining acres planted to corn.

He says farmers are responding to market signals.  “The market signal in the corn market has been the declining corn prices ever since we started to build stocks following the big crop of 2013,” he says.  “You expect farmers to respond to those market signals.

Newton tells Brownfield export markets can be key to any commodity.  “Unfortunately in the corn markets, what we saw in 2013 China really backed away from buying US corn,” he says.  “They instead turned to sorghum markets.”

He says, the Chinese demand for sorghum has not only increased the market value of sorghum but the increase in demand has helped boost intended acres planted.