Rising prices send farmers to soybeans

KIESTER, Minn. — While corn is still king — it’s the largest U.S. crop by value and volume — farmers from North Dakota to Texas are preparing to use more of their land on soybeans instead.

That’s because cash prices have jumped 9.2 percent since the 2016 harvest, creating the widest premium over corn in 29 years, and the oilseed is cheaper to grow. After confronting the prospects of losses on both crops in 2016, soybeans are now more profitable, which means the world’s largest grower may harvest a record crop for a second-straight year.

“It’s the difference between choosing to operate in the black or in the red,” said Jon Mutschler, 48, who farms 2,500 acres in Minnesota with his wife and son. “The market is telling us to plant soybeans,” he said. Mutschler will sow 55 percent of his land with corn, down from 67 percent last season, and boost soybeans to 45 percent from 33 percent.

Seed technology that combats drought, bugs and disease is helping U.S. farmers produce record amounts of corn and soybeans on every acre, but demand prospects are better for soybeans used to make animal feed, cooking oil and biofuel. Rising global consumption of meat, poultry, eggs and dairy has doubled the amount of soybased meal in animal feed since 2000. Most of that growth occurred in China, the biggest pork producer, where soybean imports have doubled in the past eight years.