12—Lancaster Farming, Saturday. September 15, 1973
U. S. Corn Crop Will Set Record
The nation’s corn crop, a key to
consumer food supplies in 1974,
will be a record 5,768 billion
bushels this year, up four per
cent from last year and two per
cent more than forecast in
August, the Agriculture
Department said Tuesday.
Other major grain and oilseed
crops, sorely needed to replenish
dwindling reserves and stimulate
livestock production, also are
setting harvest records.
But foreign buyers, also
wanting grain and other com
modities, continue to bid up
prices and keep supplies tight for
American consumers.
Wheat production this year, for
example, will be a record 1.727
billion bushels, up 12 per cent
from last year, the department’s
Crop Reporting Board said. That
was up one per cent from in
dications in August.
Exporters, meanwhile, say
they have shipped or booked for
delivery more than 1.3 billion
bushels of wheat to foreign
buyers through mid-1974, about
the time next year’s harvest is
ready.
Thus, with wheat exports
taking more than three-fourths of
this year’s crop, prices for the
bread grain are likely to remain
relatively high through at least
the first half of 1974.
Similar demands are being put
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on corn, other feed grains and
soybeans. Exporters say, for
example, that they have booked
more than 1.2 billion bushels of
this year’s corn crqjjfor delivery
in 1973-74.
Coupled with domestic needs of
about 4.6 billion bushels, the
listed exports point to a total
requirement of around 5.8 billion
bushels during the corn
marketing year which bgins
October 1.
In effect, the report of new crop
records means little by itself.
Most important will be how ac
tual exports shape up and how
much of the vital commodities
will remain to feed U.S. cattle,
hogs and chickens next winter
and through much of 1974.
However, the report Tuesday
showed 1973 farm crop produc
tion at an all-time high. Com
pared with a base year of 1967,
the department’s “all crops”
index was 120 per cent, up from.
113 in 1972 and 118 estimated last
month.
Farm products are far more
expensive to buy than they were a
year ago or in 1967. In another
report recently, USD A said that
the average .prices farmers
recieve for all products jumped
20 per cent from mid-July to mid-
August.
That put the farm price index
at 207 per cent of the 1967 base. In
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other words, comparing
Tuesday’s report, in the past six
years prices farmers get have
more than doubled while crop
production rose 20 per cent.
Based on field surveys Sept. 1,
here is how the nation’s crop
picture shaped up:
Output of the four major
livestock feed grains corn,
oats, barley and sorghum is
estimated at 210 million tons, up
five per cent from 1972. The
August estimate was 207 million
tons.
Total food grain production
was put at 57.5 million tons, up 12
per cent from last year. The
August estimate was 57 million.
In addition to wheat, rice output
was estimated at 16 per cent
more than last year.
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1 Oilseed production, including
peanuts, cottonseed, flaxseed and
soybeans, was estimated at a
record 55.3 million tons, up 20 per
cent from 1972 and four per cent
more than last month.