The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service has put out the Propsective Plantings report for 2011. Corn will be popping... if the fields ever dry out. The NASS predicts farmers nationally will increase corn acres 4.5%, wheat 8.2%, and cotton 15%.
More than 21% of the increase in corn acres will happen right here in South Dakota. NASS predicts we'll plant the biggest share of the country's new corn, 850,000 more ear-y acres. That's 1328 square miles. That's 1.7% of South Dakota, or Moody and Brookings counties planted edge-to-edge in corn, on top of all the corn acres planted last year.
Also projected to be up in South Dakota this year: sorghum, winter wheat, soybeans, sunflowers for oil, and dry edible beans. Going down: oats (down 21%), barley (29%), spring wheat, hay, non-oil sunflowers, and chickpeas (down from 4200 acres to 3400).
No word in this report on tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, or other produce we might actually eat locally. But grease up that garden tiller—this wind should have the ground dried up in no time!
Where do I report my projected harvest of tomatoes, summer squash, broccoli and spinach. And more importantly do I qualify for federal disaster payments if my tomatoes turn out as poorly as last years?
Matt! Try reporting your harvest to the NASS quarterly Vegetables report! As for subsidies... well, we've got some talking to do to get the government to subsidize crops people actually eat instead of corn syrup.