Renewable Fuels Association Vice President of Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper put together an analysis of today’s USDA crop supply report on the RFA E-xchange Blog to put the report into perspective from both a historical context as well as a global production context, answering calls from some international voices to end global biofuel production.

“As expected, this morning’s supply-demand estimates from USDA showed a big reduction in the size of the 2012 corn crop and average yield. Today’s report estimates average yield at 123.4 bushels per acre (bpa), down nearly 23 bpa from USDA’s July estimate and the lowest yield since 1995. Harvested acres are pegged at 87.4 million, meaning a crop of 10.78 billion bushels (bbu) is expected. This is down more than 2 billion bushels from USDA’s July estimate and would be the smallest crop since 2006. Today’s USDA numbers were slightly worse than expected by analysts; on average, they had expected a crop of 10.97 bbu on a yield of 126.2 bpa. While this year’s harvest will be considerably smaller than initially expected, it is remarkable that farmers are still expected to produce the eighth-largest corn crop on record despite experiencing the worst drought in 50 years and the hottest month of July in recorded history.”

Listen to an interview with Cooper here: RFA's Geoff Cooper on USDA crop forecast

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