How Much US Crop Acreage Lost to Floods?
US: June 23, 2008
CHICAGO - Tracking the amount of US corn and soybeans lost to the worst
flooding in 15 years for the US Midwest, one of the world's key food
production areas, will be a daunting task, crop specialists said on Friday.
"The key word is uncertainty. We're getting close to the end of time to
replant crops, but that leaves a lot of unknowns," said Bob Nielsen,
extension agronomist with Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana.
"How severe is the crop damage in those areas that survived? How stunted are
they going to be? What's the true effect going to be on yield? That depends
on the rest of the summer," he said. "It's a very confusing mess."
Iowa, last year's top grower of corn and soybeans, was the hardest hit as
many rivers swelled beyond their banks. Governor Chet Culver declared 83 of
Iowa's 99 counties disaster areas.
The Cedar River at Cedar Rapids, site of several big grain processing plants
drawing from nearby fields, rose to record levels over the weekend. In the
state capital of Des Moines, which is surrounded by corn and soy fields, a
levee holding back rising flood waters broke and swamped the city.
Eastward, more than two dozen levees holding back the swollen Mississippi
from agricultural land have overtopped, sending floodwaters into thousands
of acres in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri this week.
"It's impossible to come up with a number. The flooding is going to have a
huge economic impact. There are river bottoms in Iowa that won't be planted
this year. There's so much moisture sitting there. It depends on how fast
the water can get away," Palle Pedersen, extension agronomist at Iowa State
University at Ames, said.
Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang cited estimates of the state's corn
and soybean losses at US$3 billion.
Iowa's weekly state crop report on Monday gave the best lead so far --
reporting that 9 percent of Iowa's corn acres were flooded and 8 percent of
the soybean crop was flooded.
That equates to 1.19 million corn acres and 784,000 soybean acres based on
USDA's March planting intentions report.
Using Iowa's average yield of 170 bu/acre over the last three seasons, that
amounts to a potential loss of 202 million bushels of corn. Using the 3-year
average yield for soybeans of 51.5 bushels per acre, the potential loss is
40 million bu.
Some of those acres will be replanted. But it is too late in the season to
plant corn confidently in Iowa, and nearly too late to plant beans, with any
prospect of half-decent yields.
Don Rust, a farmer from Ursa, Illinois, estimated cropland 13 miles (21 km)
long and six miles (9.7 km) wide was flooded in his area on the eastern side
of the river across from Iowa.
"It will take three to four months for this water to recede," Rust said,
looking over flooded fields. "This is a lot of good land that will be
useless until next year."
Grain analysts hope that USDA's June 30 planted acreage report will give
clues to the damage. But those farmer surveys were conducted during the
first two weeks of June before much of the flooding and levee breaks this
week.
Analytical firm Informa Economics issued its latest US corn and soybean
planting estimates to clients on Friday.
Traders said those estimates were based on surveys made in late May and
early June -- before the extensive flooding.
They said Informa put US corn acres at 87.4 million acres, up 1.4 million
from USDA's current estimate, and soybeans at 73.3 million, down 1.5 million
from USDA.
But they also said Informa already made adjustments on its estimates, down
900,000 planted corn acres and harvested corn acreage by 2.6 million.
Soybean acreage was seen up 1.2 million from its forecast released on
Friday. (Additional reporting by Karl Plume, Lisa Shumaker, Julie Ingwersen
and Nick Carey in Chicago. Writing by Christine Stebbins, Editing by Peter
Bohan and Christian Wiessner)
Story by Christine Stebbins
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

|