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Analyst expects big increase in soybean acres

Most analysts are predicting a big increase in U.S. soybean acres in 2021.

Iowa State University farm management specialist Steve Johnson agrees.   

“I believe that U.S. farmers are probably going to plant an extra four to six million acres of soybeans,” Johnson says. “I think we’re probably going to come close to the 90 million acres of soybeans that we grew in ’18.”

Johnson says most of those additional acres will come from land that was prevent plant in 2020.

“Remember, we had almost 12 million acres of prevent plant in ’20. Most those acres are in the northern belt—North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin—and now that water table has dropped.”

Johnson made his comments during a Farm Credit Services of America webinar.