KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US — There were several surprises in the latest data dump from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), especially for the 2025 US corn crop, but perhaps the biggest surprise was how far apart some of the pre-report trade estimates were from the actual USDA numbers. As market participants digest the latest figures, some analysts provided a glimpse into potential indicators that may have been overlooked when projecting the latest US crop outcomes.
In the Jan. 12 Crop Production report, the USDA raised its forecast for 2025 US corn production to 17.021 billion bushels, with a corn yield of 186.5 bushels per acre. The production forecast was 1.6% higher than the December forecast, was up 14% from 2024 production, and confirmed that the 2025 US corn crop was record large. The January corn yield forecast was 0.3% higher than the prior month’s outlook, was up 4% from the 2025 yield estimate, and also record high.
Both the corn production and yield amounts in the January report were above the entire range of pre-report trade estimates, with the average estimate for production at 16.552 billion bushels, and the average yield at 184 bushels per acre.
“It’s the biggest surprise we’ve seen in 20 years, as far as the January report goes,” said Brian Harris, executive director and co-owner of Global Risk Management, Inc. “The corn acreage has slowly but surely shifted further west over the past few years. And while the more corn-intense states were more impacted by the warmer and dry weather, you’ve got some higher acres going into the west now.”
The top two corn producing states are Iowa and Illinois, which collectively account for about a third of the total corn production in the United States. But, like Harris mentioned, acreage has been expanding in other states. Comparing corn production volumes between the 2024 estimate and the 2025 forecast in the November Crop Production report, several states showed an increase of 75% year-over-year production, or more. And while most states will never reach the level of output in Iowa and Illinois, that type of increase is significant, and every bushel counts.
Get the latest grain markets news → enjoy a free market focus newsletter trial here
Keeping track of the changing outputs across the states is a challenging task, especially for an agency that has had to manage the longest government shutdown in history as well as losing 20% of its staff in one year.
“We’ve had a significant drain of experience from analysts who’ve had a lot of experience under their belts, and it looks like we’re seeing the effect of it,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at StoneX.
Suderman said in addition to the increase in crop size, he was surprised by the allocations reported for corn usage in the USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, which was released the same day as the January Crop Production report. In the WASDE, the USDA forecast 2025-26 feed usage at 6.2 billion bushels, up 100 million bushels from December and up 14% from 5.454 billion bushels estimated for feed use in 2024-25.
“Rather than increase corn exports, they increased feed usage, which is already elevated to illogical high levels,” Suderman said. “You can’t increase feed usage by almost 750 million bushels over last year’s level when you have fewer animals that you’re feeding.”
Many analysts were surprised that the Department did not adjust corn exports higher from the December report, keeping its forecast at 3.2 billion bushels.
“When you look at export inspections of corn at this point, the marketing year to date exceeds the seasonal pace needed to hit the USDA’s record high target by 330 billion bushels,” Suderman said. “They could have easily gone up another 100 million bushels and been very justified.”
All the surprises from the reports wreaked havoc on the corn futures market. The March 2026 contract plummeted by over 5% the day the reports were released. Still, some analysts are not convinced the market will tumble much lower.
“I don’t think we need a full court press below $4 (a bushel) but working back to $4.05 or $4.10 would probably be enough for now in the current environment,” Harris said.
He cautioned that there did not appear to be much upside hope, however, given the large corn crop in South America.
Suderman concurred, saying he expected the market to stabilize after the large drop and settle into a new sideways trading range.
“We’d been in the old trading range for several months, and we’ll establish a new trading range here, but it does make it more difficult for a weather rally to generate a larger strength in the market,” he said. “It doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but you have to have a more significant threat develop either in Brazil in the coming growing season for the winter corn crop or this summer in the United States.”
