A livestock economist says the expected shift to more corn acres is good news for cattle producers.

Josh Maples is with Mississippi State University. “Corn, of course, as a primary input for the feeding sector and for all cattle producers, plentiful supplies of corn are a positive thing on the input cost side of cattle production,” he says.  “I think that this report kind of bolsters that.”

He tells Brownfield row crop producers are facing incredibly tight margins, and that’s making a difference this year. “There’s not a lot of different directions that these producers can go right now,” he says.  “We’re seeing that shift, and livestock producers have to be able to react to that and think about input costs on their side.”

Maples says fewer soybean acres mean hog producers could see higher feed costs later in the year.

In its March Prospective Plantings report, the USDA has U.S. corn planting area at 95.3 million acres, an increase of 5 percent from last year, and U.S. soybean planted area at 83.5 million acres, a decline of 4 percent from last year.

Source - https://www.brownfieldagnews.com