Behind the Scenes

Questioning the bear in Katrina

This morning, USDA released the monthly Crop Production Report. If you’re not familiar, this is the government’s estimate of crop production, based on data gathered by their experts across the country. The report was called bearish, with a bigger-than-expected yield predicted for corn, soybeans and cotton. It seemed to surprise many folks that with this summer’s drought and Hurricane Katrina, the government is still expecting a big harvest. USDA Undersecretary Chuck Conner told reporters that Katrina wasn’t too big of an impact, as the effected region is mostly cotton and rice farms, and harvest was already well underway when the storm made landfall. But Greg Grow, an agribiz exec with Archer Financial Services, disagrees. He told farm media on a Monday morning conference call that Katrina must have taken a toll on the southern states’ soybean crop. Grow depicted that fact that USDA missed the boat, and left the Katrina impact stranded in their data until next month’s report. However, late last week we heard from Ag Secretary Mike Johanns, who advised everyone to expect the Katrina effects to show up in this crop report. Perhaps we were all expecting a little too much hype and too little crop?

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