U.S. farmers leave fields fallow as COVID-19 wrecks crop prospects

...Farmers routinely make changes to their acreage intentions as the calendar advances, substituting in different crops if the weather mucks up their original plans. But leaving the ground bare is new territory for U.S. farmers who typically plant fencerow to fencerow, trying to squeeze profit out of every available acre. The most recent acreage data from the government showed corn and cotton plantings in particular were far below initial expectations, with corn seedings in June dropping the most from March in 37 years. The coronavirus pandemic caused many farmers to give up on their corn crop before it was even in the ground. When calculating their plans for 2020, they had viewed corn as the crop most likely to turn a profit as ongoing tensions with China threatened to roil the soybean export program even after Beijing and Washington inked a Phase 1 trade deal in January. A U.S. Agriculture Department report issued in March showed that farmers had planned to seed 96.999 million acres of the yellow grain, which would have been the second-highest since the Great Depression. But demand for ethanol, a corn-based biofuel blended into gasoline, cratered as COVID-19 cases spread across the country and people stayed home. That caused corn markets to slump just as farmers were firing up their tractors for planting season. When USDA issued its June acreage report, corn plantings had dropped 5.1% from the March intentions, reflecting the 10.3% drop in prices. U.S. supplies of corn stood at the second-highest level in 31 years last fall and the stockpiles were expected to swell even further after this year’s harvest. There is so much corn on hand that even some unusual purchases of U.S. corn from China in recent weeks failed to lift prices, with futures CZ0 sinking to contract lows in early August. Cotton plantings also were sharply lower, with farmers dropping seedings by 10.9% from their March intentions of 13.703 million acres. Cotton prices dropped 30% during planting season as global shutdowns roiled demand for new clothing...MORE