November 9, 2020
BY Erin Voegele
The USDA on Nov. 6 released select commodity tables from its USDA Agricultural Projections to 2030 report, which is scheduled to be released in full in February 2021. The report predicts a slight growth in corn use for ethanol over the next decade.
According to the USDA’s projections, corn planted acres are expected to remain relatively flat over the next 10 years. Planted acres were at 89.7 million in 2019-’20, are expected to reach 91 million in 2020-’21, fall to 90 million from 2021-’22 through 2025-’26, fall to 89 million in 2026-’27 and remain at that level through 2030-’31. Similarly, harvested corn acres were at 81.3 million in 2019-’20, are expected to increase to 82.5 million in 2020-’21 and remain at that level through 2025-’26, fall to 81.5 million in 2016-’27 and remain at that level through 2030-’31.
Corn yields are expected to increase steady over the next decade, from 167.5 bushels per acre in 2019-’20 to 198.5 bushels per acre in 2030-’31.
The USDA’s data shows 4.852 billion bushels of corn went to ethanol production in 2019-’20. That volume is expected to grow to 5.05 billion bushels in 2020-’21, increase to 5.125 billion bushels in 2021-’22 and remain at that level through 2027-’28, and increase to 5.15 billion bushels in 2028-’29 and remain at that level through 2030-’31.
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Additional information is available on the USDA website.
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