LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas farmers followed a national trend this year by increasing the number of acres of corn planted in the state by 17.8 percent, according to a report released Friday.
While soybeans remained Arkansas’ largest crop in terms of acreage planted at 3.25 million acres, down 2.4 percent from 2011, corn grew to 660,000 planted acres in 2012 - a 100,000-acre increase over the acreage planted in 2011.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Statistics Service reported that nationally, 96.4 million acres of corn were planted in 2012 - a 5 percent increase over 2011 and the most since 1937.
Cotton acreage in Arkansas dropped 14.7 percent in 2012, according to the USDA report. Farmers planted 580,000 acres in 2012, compared with 680,000 acres a year ago.
Production costs combined with estimated commodity prices were key factors behind corn’s growth and cotton’s decline, said Gene Martin, a senior market analyst with the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
The price of corn, a main ingredient of livestock feed, is climbing in part because of its use in making ethanol to blend with gasoline. A federal biofuel mandate requires increased production of ethanol, resulting in increased demand for corn.
Planting decisions are “just a year-to-year thing for many farmers looking at prices for many crops,” Martin said Friday.
In looking at corn versus cotton, both have relatively high production costs, needing fertilizer and good irrigation, Martin said.
Corn “is a relatively new crop to Arkansas,” said Martin. “We’ve seen acreage creep higher because corn prices have crept higher.”
Cotton also needs more intense management than corn, which can be planted and harvested earlier than cotton. The weather can be a factor as well. Martin said late-season storms can take a toll on cotton yield and quality.
Instability in cotton markets combined with uncertainty over how commodities will be handled in the 2012 federal farm bill is causing uncertainty among cotton farmers, said Tom Barber, an agronomist who specializes in cotton with the UA System Agriculture Department.
“The main reason is the market price for cotton versus the market price for corn or soybean,” Barber said Friday. If the price stays the way it is [for cotton], it’ll decline even further next year.”
Barber said cotton is both more costly and harder to grow than corn.
“Farmers just can’t afford to grow cotton anymore at 56 cents per pound,” Barber said, adding that farmers need to earn from 90 cents to $1 per pound to make it attractive.
Nationally, planted cotton acreage was down 14 percent, to 12.6 million acres.
The farm bill is now pending in the U.S. House after the Senate passed its version last week. Farmers in Southern states are unhappy with the Senate version because they believe a restructured crop insurance program won’t provide them enough of a safety net when crop prices drop.
Even with corn’s growth, rice remains a dominant crop in Arkansas, according to the report.
Martin said heavy rains and flooding along the Mississippi River in 2011 took a toll on rice acreage in Arkansas and other states.
However, Arkansas rice acreage jumped 21.2 percent in 2012 to 1.14 million acres, compared with 940,000 acres the year before, which surprised Martin. He expected lower crop prices would result in many acres not getting replanted.
“Every state went down in [rice] acreage except Arkansas and Missouri,” Martin said.
He said farmers in those two states probably wanted to get back to planting the same acreage they’d done in past years, as well as take advantage of existing facilities used in the rice industry rather than let them stay idle.
“We’ve had two relatively small crops, so rice stocks are tightening here in the U.S., so farmers may be figuring that prices will go up,” Martin said
Overall, Arkansas saw the amount of acreage planted in principal crops in 2012 shrink by 0.5 percent compared with 2011, according to the USDA report.
It said farmers planted 7.86 million acres of principal crops in 2012, compared with 7.9 million acres in 2011. Principal crops include commodities such as corn, rice, sorghum, oats, winter wheat, soybeans, peanuts, cotton, potatoes, sugar beets and others.
Nationally, the USDA said farmers planted 325.9 million acres of principal crops, up 3.4 percent from the 315 million acres planted in 2011.
Jeremy Ross, an extension agronomist who specializes in soybeans, said soybeans have come to the forefront among Arkansas crops over the past several years because of rising prices.
“Personally, I thought the numbers would be up a little more, especially compared to [early] numbers that came out last spring,” and combined a spike in fertilizer costs, Ross said. “But, I guess a lot of guys had already booked for rice and cotton and stuck with those.”
He said it was likely that if a farmer did decide to shift his crop, he went to corn.
Given the state’s hot, dry weather, soybeans, like other crops, are taking a hit, Ross said.
While about 75 percent of Arkansas’ soybean acreage is irrigated, watering can only do so much as days of 100-degree weather mount, he said. Nearly the entire state is experiencing drought, with 31 percent of the state considered to be in “extreme” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Thanks to a mild winter and good weather in early spring, Ross said the soybean crop is running about two weeks ahead of five-year averages.
He said plants are starting to hit a critical stage where they bloom and grow pods. While irrigation helps, if the plants are stressed for too long, they will shed flowers.
“Once you get above 100 degrees with no rainfall, they’ll shut down pretty quick,” Ross said.
Prolonged stress - such as what’s indicated by weather forecasts that call for no rain in the near term - will affect yields.
But he said Arkansas’ soybeans might fare well this year, given similar hot, dry conditions hitting much larger soybean states in the Midwest where farmers don’t irrigate as much as in Arkansas.
Business, Pages 30 on 06/30/2012