Evidence from FSA Acreage Data

By Jason Franken and Joe Janzen

Last week, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released new 2025 planted acreage estimates for major crops in its monthly Crop Production report. USDA’s WASDE (World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates) report, released the same day, generally uses the most recent acreage estimates produced by NASS to forecast crop supply for the coming marketing year. For the second time, NASS used August data on crop acreage enrolled in farm programs from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) to update its planted acreage estimates for corn and soybeans.

In previous years, NASS only updated acreage estimates for corn and soybeans using FSA data in September. This change reflects that, in recent years, nearly all planted acres are enrolled in FSA farm programs and those acres are nearly all enrolled by August. NASS indicated as such in a special note at the beginning of its August Crop Production report: “NASS reviewed planted and harvested acreage estimates in this report for barley, corn, (other crops), and wheat using all available data, including the latest certified acreage from the Farm Service Agency (FSA).”

The NASS Crop Production report increased the corn planted area estimate from 95.2 to 97.3 million acres and decreased the soybean estimate from 83.4 to 80.9 million acres. This continues a series of ‘more corn-less beans’ acreage projections that began when USDA released their first 2025 corn and soybean acreage numbers at their Agricultural Outlook Forum back in February. (See Figure 1 for the history of updates to USDA 2025 acreage estimates.) More corn acres partially explain increased estimated corn supply and the bearish corn market reaction to the report’s release. Given the extreme swing this year by U.S. farmers toward corn and away from soybeans, this article reviews the FSA acreage data. We show that if anything FSA enrolled acres imply even more corn acres than NASS is projecting.

Estimating Final Acreage Using FSA Acreage Data

FSA acreage data should be a good indicator of true planted acreage. These data report actual sign up of real planted acres. They do not require extrapolation of survey responses or interpretation of satellite imagery, other methods for assessing how many acres are planted to which crops. However, FSA acres are not equal to NASS planted acres so some interpretation is required.

Mapping FSA acreage data to NASS estimates involves adjustments to reflect both additional acreage that will be FSA-enrolled between August and the end of the crop year and the expected difference in FSA acreage and NASS figures because not all farms and acres are enrolled in FSA programs. This two-step approach was used to assess FSA acreage data in previous Farmdoc analyses (Irwin and Hubbs 2020; Janzen and Franken 2023; Franken and Janzen 2024). Given that farmed acres are enrolling in farm programs earlier and in greater numbers than in the past, and in light of surprising acreage revisions in the August WASDE report, this analysis uses adjustment ratios computed from just last year’s data, which are some of the highest observed in recent history, and hence, provide fairly conservative estimates of final NASS planted acreage.

First, with respect to the FSA data, corn and soybean acreage enrolled in farm programs by August 2024 were both 99.9% of that in January 2024, which reflects limited additional enrollment over the remainder of the crop season. Second, January 2024 FSA reported acreage for corn and soybeans were 98.5% and 99.0% respectively of NASS estimates in the January Annual Summary. In Table 1, we apply these adjustment factors to August 2025 FSA acreage data to produce planted acreage estimates that can be compared to current NASS acreage estimates and offer some insight for the current price outlook.

The Table 1 estimates for corn and soybean acreage suggest revisions to planted acreages in the August WASDE report were warranted. If anything, the changes could have been larger, particularly for corn as the NASS soybean acreage estimate and that from this exercise are fairly close. Using adjustment factors based on additional historical data in steps 1 and 2 – implying that this year could be more like the distant past – would only mean an even higher corn planted acreage estimate. There are limits to the ongoing trend of earlier FSA enrollment and greater concordance between FSA and NASS data as these adjustment factors approach 100%. For instance, assuming the FSA to NASS acreage ratio for corn equals the soybean ratio of 99.0% in step 2 would translate into 97.6 million corn planted acres, still 300,000 above the August NASS estimate.

Balance Sheet and Price Implications

Replacing the WASDE acreage estimates with those in Table 1, and retaining all other estimates from the WASDE balance sheet facilitates alternative supply outlook and resulting price projections. Planted acreage that is 1% higher for corn and 0.3% lower for soybeans than in the latest WASDE balance sheets has corresponding effects on harvested acres, assuming the same percentage of planted acres harvested as the WASDE report (91% for corn and 99% for soybeans). With other supply and demand variables at August WASDE levels as shown in Table 2, ending stocks increase by about 150 million bushels for corn and decrease slightly by 10 million bushels for soybeans.

Given that supply and demand jointly determine price in economic theory, the stocks-to-use ratio, a summary measure of commodity availability after meeting current use demand for the marketing year, should be inversely related to price. Previous farmdoc analyses have considered the merit of stocks-to-use in price forecasts (e.g., Irwin and Good 2016). In Figure 2, the scatter plots approximate the stocks-to-use versus price relationship for both corn and soybeans.

Our acreage forecast generates a 2025/2026 U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio of 14.2%, a dramatic build in availability relative to the previous year. 2025/2026 U.S. soybean stocks-to-use decreases to 6.4%, which historically tight but not extreme. Plugging these stocks-to-use values into a forecast model fitted to the Figure 2 data, suggests season average prices of $3.76/bu for corn and $10.16/bu for soybeans; these are 14¢/bu lower for corn and 10¢/bu higher for soybeans than current WASDE forecast values. Estimates from this approach for last year were $3.71/bu and $10.31/bu compared to WASDE estimates of $4.20/bu and $10.80/bu and realized prices of $4.30/bu and $10/bu. The higher realized price for corn reflects that projections implied a stocks-to-use ratio around 14% compared to a realized value of 8.5%, reflecting a combination of lower beginning stocks, lower production (due to slightly lower yields), and greater exports than anticipated. Similar patterns for beginning stocks, production, and exports of soybeans, as well as somewhat greater than anticipated crushing, also contributed to lower realized stocks-to-use ratio (7.5%) than anticipated (12.8%) for the oilseed.

As a caveat, note that FSA enrolled acres have grown less from August–January over time and January FSA and NASS data have been more similar. If those trends continue, then the approach used here could overestimate acreages and underestimate prices. However, if this year turns out be more like earlier years, then even higher acreages and lower prices may be realized.

Conclusion

Data on crop acres enrolled in FSA programs suggests the dramatic increase in estimated U.S. corn planted acres seen in last week’s WASDE report is real. Our analysis suggests that the WASDE acreage number is if anything a conservative estimate of U.S. corn acreage. More corn acres imply lower prices. Even if USDA’s corn yield forecast is overly optimistic as many market watchers have suggested, higher acreage means abundant corn supply and low prices for the upcoming marketing year.

Yes, There Are a Lot of Corn Acres: Evidence From FSA Acreage Data was originally published by Farmdoc.