5-16 IAN Planting

With the 2011 growing season now in full swing, the USDA’s national agricultural statistics service will spend the first two weeks of June surveying thousands of farmers across Idaho to get a clear indication of the production and supply of major commodities for the year. The information provided will be compiled into one publicly accessible report and maintain confidentiality of individual farmer information. In March US farmers reported that they have planted or intend to plant more acres of corn wheat and cotton this crop season and fewer acres of soybeans.  Now with most of the crop actually in the ground, producers are being asked what they actually planted. Here is an NASS spokesperson Vince Matthews: “The surveys that we will have going on in June are primarily to finalize what farmers have planted, it’s normal follow-up that we do around the end of March which is their intentions of what they are going to plant but by the early part of June it is more definite that they know what they have planted, their plans are more final and so that’s what we are getting later in the season is exactly what the acreage is of the crops that have been planted.