Crop Insurance Today June 2018 - 11

in the growing season, conditions were ideal for
growing cotton in Kansas, Oklahoma and the
high plains of Texas due to early rains followed
by warmer temperatures and dry conditions. Except for the effects of Hurricane Harvey on the
coastal regions, Texas continued to have relatively ideal growing conditions. In the Southeast,
rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures
created some pest and diseases issues, but drier weather later in the year provided favorable
growing conditions.
The spring wheat crop recorded the poorest
performance of the year. Drought conditions
throughout the growing season led to one of the
worst crops in recent memory. The crop is grown
primarily in the High Plains and Pacific Northwest, with the largest production in North Dakota. As of mid-July, 35 percent of North Dakota's
5.3 million acres (48 percent of the total) was
ranked in poor to very poor condition. By the
end of the season, only 34 percent of the crop was
ranked in good to excellent condition, compared
to the previous five-year average of 66 percent.
Fall 2017: The fall saw a resurgence of the
influence of La Niña and it became more so as the
season progressed. Ironically a La Niña related
weather pattern included a drying trend in costal Texas and southern Florida, an area that had
been devastated by hurricane-related flooding a
short time before.
The fall season began as the summer season
ended, with a major hurricane making landfall
and resulting in catastrophic damage. Hurricane
Irma was the most powerful hurricane in recorded history, a Category 5 storm that made landfall
on Barbuda on September 6, 2017 with 85 miles
per hour winds lasting for 37 hours. After leaving
a path of disaster across the Caribbean, Hurricane Irma had been downgraded to a Category
4 by the time it hit Florida, making landfall in
Cudjo Key, 20 miles north of Key West and then
moved on to Naples. A much lesser storm continued up the state to Tampa and remnants continued to Georgia. The second major hurricane to
hit the U.S. in 2017 resulted in massive flooding,
power outages, and crop damage particularly to
the Florida citrus crop.
In contrast to the hurricane experience, continued drought conditions in the Northern Plains
and dryness in the Central and Southern Plains,
along with warm temperatures, resulted in poor
growing conditions for the winter wheat crop.
Wet conditions characterized the fall season in
the Northwest while in the Midwest wet conditions contributed to delays in final corn harvest.

Table 1 Crop Yields and Production
2016
2017
%

CROPS
2016 YIELD
2017 YIELD

PRODUCTION PRODUCTION CHANGE

Bu./Harv. Ac.

Corn 174.6

Barley 77.9
Grain Sorghum 77.9
Soybeans 52
All Wheat 52.7
Winter Wheat 55.3
Other Spring 47.3

Lbs./Harv. Ac.

Upland Cotton 855

Rice

Lbs./Harv. Ac.

7,237

176.6
72.6
72.1
49
46.3
50.2
41

Lbs./Harv. Ac.

Mill. Bu.

14,604 -3.6%
142 -29.0%
364 -24.2%
4,391 2.2%
1,741 -24.6%
1,269 -24.1%
416 -21.8%

1,000 Bales

889
Lbs./Harv. Ac.

Mill. Bu.

15,148
200
480
4,296
2,309
1,673
532

1,000 Bales

16,601 20,570 23.9%
1,000 Cwt.

1,000 Cwt.

7,507 224,145 178,228 -20.5%

Source: NASS Crop Production Annual Summary, January 2018
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProdSu/CropProdSu-01-12-2018.pdf

La Niña's influence was credited with generally dry conditions in the Southwest and Southern
U.S. Wildfires again ravaged California beginning in the north, and just after the end of the fall,
other fires broke out in the south. As a testament
to the wide swing in weather patterns in 2017, six
months after drought conditions were reported
to be a record low of 4.5 percent for the lower 48,
were, by the end of November, 21.1 percent due
to a drying out of the southern U.S. and continued dryness in the Northern plains. (Figure 8.)
[The information sources for this section were:
National Agricultural Statistics Service, ISSN:
1057-7823, Crop Production 2017 Summary,
January 2018]

2017 Crop Production
Summary

Overall production of major commodities
was down from the 2016 levels except for soybeans and cotton (Table 1). Despite a record year
for corn yields, 176.6 bushels per acre, production declined by almost 4 percent in line with
the reduction in acres planted and harvested. By
comparison, production declines for other feed
grains such as barley and grain sorghum were
much more significant. The back-to-back high
barley prices in 2012-13 stimulated production
and resulted in burdensome stock accumulation and prices have continued to decline since
2014. Farmers have reacted by planting the
least amount of barley in the U.S. since 1866;
2.48 million acres, down 19 percent from 2016.
Combined with a 7 percent decline in yield, 2017
barley production declined to 142 million bush4

els, 29 percent below the previous year. The production of grain sorghum also declined in 2017,
albeit somewhat less than barley. The U.S. grain
sorghum crop was reported to be 364 million
bushels, down more than 24 percent from 2016.
The decrease in production was attributable to a
decrease in planted acres to 5.63 million, down
16 percent from last year, combined with lower
yields, 72.1 bushels per acre, down almost 6 percent from the previous year.
In 2017, U.S. soybean crop conditions did not
measure up to 2016 and yields declined to an average of 49 bushels per acre, almost 3 percent below the 2016 record yield of 52 bushels per acre.
However, with a record of 90.1 million planted
acres, an 8 percent increase from the previous
year, overall production increased by more than
2 percent to a record 4.391 billion bushels.
As mentioned earlier, 2017 was a dismal year
for U.S. wheat production. All wheat production
declined by almost 25 percent to 1.741 billion
bushels. A combination of poor crop conditions
contributing to lower yields and a decrease in
planted acres resulted in declines in production
in winter wheat and other spring wheat of 24.1
percent and 21.8 percent respectively.
U.S. rice production also declined in 2017,
down more than 20 percent from 2016 to just
over 224 thousand hundred weights. The decrease in production came despite increased
yields in all states but Texas and California as
the prices of alternative commodities attracted
acreage away from rice production. A reduction
in planted acres of 2.46 million acres, down 22
percent from 2016, combined with flood-related

https://www.thebalance.com/hurricane-irma-facts-timeline-damage-costs-4150395

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http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/CropProdSu/CropProdSu-01-12-2018.pdf https://www.thebalance.com/hurricane-irma-facts-timeline-damage-costs-4150395

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