USA: The total area to be sown must be greater

(By Dwight Roberts, USRPA) It's the moment we've all been waiting for – we're already far enough into the year that we can put some numbers around this year's expected area. The good news is that it is expected to be higher than last year. The bad news is that it is still far below normal and probably not enough to bring in significantly more exports, all things being equal. All areas are estimates and may still vary slightly in the coming weeks and months, but this will at least help provide some context as we move towards next year's intentions. To start, we expect Arkansas to have increased its long grain acreage by 13% from 1 million acres last year to approximately 1.15 million acres. Medium grain acres are expected to increase by nearly 15% to 150,000 acres from 106,000 acres last year. In all discussions related to medium grains, except California, the area is limited by seed availability this year. In Louisiana, long grain acres are expected to decline about 5% to 350,000 ...