Corn & SoyWheatCottonLivestockSpecialty
USDA's first survey yields cut corn to 180.7 bushels; wheat, sorghum and rice forecasts sit below reference prices
The Aug. 12 Crop Production and WASDE reports trimmed Plains corn, sorghum and wheat and raised price forecasts. Against the new statutory reference prices, three program crops now project PLC gaps as farmers face a 2026 ARC-or-PLC choice.
USDA’s first farmer-surveyed yield forecasts of the season, released August 12, cut the national corn yield to 180.7 bushels an acre and took 84 million bushels out of the sorghum crop, with the losses concentrated on the Plains[1, 2]. The same reports raised USDA’s price forecasts for corn, wheat and sorghum, and left wheat, sorghum and long-grain rice projected below the reference prices that trigger Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments[1, 3].
That matters now because producers face a fresh program choice. The 2025 reconciliation law paid every farm the higher of PLC or county-level Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC-CO) for the 2025 crop, but for 2026 the election is back[3, 5].
The details: a smaller corn crop on more acres
The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) put 2026 corn production at 16.0 billion bushels, down 6 percent from 2025[2]. The yield forecast fell 2.3 bushels from the July projection[1]. Harvested area went the other way: NASS raised it to 88.6 million acres, about 1.2 million more than the June Acreage report, which almost exactly offset the yield cut and left production up 13 million bushels from July[1, 4]. The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report calls it the second-largest corn harvest on record if realized[1].
Supply still tightened. USDA lowered 2026/27 beginning stocks by 75 million bushels to reflect stronger 2025/26 exports, raised 2026/27 exports 75 million bushels to 3.275 billion on “increased global demand and constrained exports for Ukraine,” and cut projected ending stocks 137 million bushels to 1.653 billion[1]. The season-average corn price forecast rose 10 cents to $4.50[1].
The other row crops, in USDA’s August numbers[1, 2]:
- Soybeans: 4.52 billion bushels on 85.8 million harvested acres, up 1.4 million acres from July with gains in Missouri, Mississippi and Minnesota. Yield 52.7 bushels. Crush raised 30 million bushels to 2.78 billion; ending stocks 320 million; price unchanged at $11.40.
- Wheat: 1.531 billion bushels, down 5 million from July, mostly in hard red winter and durum. Ending stocks 717 million bushels, 22 percent below last year. Price raised 20 cents to $6.20.
- Sorghum: 296 million bushels, down 84 million. Yield 55.4 bushels, 13.9 below July’s projection. Ending stocks cut from 37 million to 23 million bushels; price raised 20 cents to $4.30.
- Rice: 158.4 million hundredweight (cwt), up 5.1 million on more harvested area. All-rice price unchanged at $14.90 per cwt; long-grain at $13.50.
- Cotton: 13.61 million bales. Planted area raised more than 600,000 acres to 10.47 million, but yield cut 74 pounds to 798 pounds per harvested acre. Price up 2 cents to 75 cents per pound.
In the field: where the yield went
The state tables show the damage running down the western Corn Belt and into the southern Plains[2]:
| State | 2025 corn yield | 2026 forecast |
|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 145 | 126 |
| Nebraska | 194 | 183 |
| South Dakota | 171 | 151 |
| North Dakota | 158 | 142 |
| Colorado | 133 | 107 |
| Texas | 135 | 107 |
Iowa, by contrast, is forecast at 216 bushels, 6 above last year, and Ohio at 195 against 185[2]. Nebraska’s crop is forecast at 1.77 billion bushels, down from 2.03 billion, on both lower yield and nearly 800,000 fewer harvested acres[2].
Sorghum took the sharpest hit. Kansas, the largest producer, is forecast at 67 bushels an acre against 90 in 2025, and Colorado at 31 against 52[2]. Kansas winter wheat, already harvested, is put at 33 bushels an acre and 191.4 million bushels, compared with 51 bushels and 346.8 million in 2025[2]. Oklahoma upland cotton is forecast at 300 pounds an acre, down from 912[2].
Gregg Ibendahl of Kansas State University, writing in farmdoc daily, tracked the slide in weekly condition ratings: the share of the national corn crop rated good or excellent fell from 68 percent in week 28 of his season count to 61 percent in the week ending August 9, while the poor and very poor share rose from 8 to 14 percent[4]. His condition-based model had the national yield at 183.0 bushels going into the report, 2.1 bushels above USDA[4]. He also notes the August number rests on farmers’ own yield expectations; the NASS enumerators’ plant and ear counts do not start until late August and first show up in the September report[4].
How do the August prices compare with PLC reference prices?
The 2025 law raised statutory reference prices beginning with the 2025 crop and raised the percentage used in the effective reference price formula from 85 to 88[3]. Earlier Commodity Hill coverage of the new base acre allocation set out how those prices apply to added base. Set against USDA’s August 2026/27 forecasts[1, 3]:
| Crop | Statutory reference price | USDA August price forecast | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | $6.35/bu | $6.20 | 15 cents under |
| Sorghum | $4.40/bu | $4.30 | 10 cents under |
| Long-grain rice | $16.90/cwt | $13.50 | $3.40 under |
| Corn | $4.10/bu | $4.50 | 40 cents over |
| Soybeans | $10.00/bu | $11.40 | $1.40 over |
| Barley | $5.45/bu | $5.60 | 15 cents over |
| Oats | $2.65/bu | $3.35 | 70 cents over |
Two cautions apply. PLC pays only when the final marketing-year average price falls below the crop’s effective reference price, and that average is a year away[5]. And the trigger is the effective reference price, not the statutory one. It comes from a formula in the 2014 farm law whose percentage the 2025 law raised to 88, and FSA publishes it crop by crop; farmdoc daily cites FSA’s $4.01 effective price for 2024 corn as an example[3, 5].
For wheat and sorghum, the August revisions narrowed the gap. Both prices rose 20 cents on the month as supplies shrank[1]. Rice moved the other way on supply: production went up and the long-grain price held at $13.50, $3.10 above the 2025/26 estimate of $10.40 but still $3.40 under the reference price[1, 3].
ARC-CO is the other half of the decision. For 2025 through 2031 crops, the law sets the ARC guarantee at 90 percent of benchmark revenue and caps payments at 12 percent of benchmark revenue[3]. Because ARC-CO pays on county revenue rather than a national price, the Plains yield losses in the NASS tables are the kind of shortfall the program measures; county yields will not be known until well after harvest.
Ohio State’s Carl Zulauf and University of Illinois colleagues, writing August 5, proposed a simple test: choose PLC if a crop’s average U.S. cash price in January of the current marketing year is below the effective reference price for the decision year, otherwise choose ARC-CO[5]. Applied to 2021-2024, they found it would have captured about 93 percent of potential payments, compared with 67 percent under the elections farmers actually made[5].
Livestock and dairy
USDA cut its cattle price forecasts for the third and fourth quarters of 2026 and through 2027, citing “weaker-than-expected demand for fed cattle”[1]. The beef forecasts assume Mexican feeder cattle return only through Douglas, Arizona, from August 24, with every other port closed until USDA sets a timeline, following the Douglas reopening announced in July[1]. The 2026 all-milk price forecast was lowered to $19.85 per cwt[1].
On the Hill: the reference prices are law, the rest of the farm bill is not
The commodity title that sets these reference prices is already settled. The 2025 reconciliation law wrote them in, along with the additional base acres and the 2026 program election[3, 5]. None of that waits on Congress.
What does wait is everything else. Jonathan Coppess of the University of Illinois reported August 13 that the Senate Agriculture Committee failed on August 6 to report the bill Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) has called “Farm Bill 2.0,” and that the chairman indicated the committee may try again in September[6]. Coppess wrote that the draft “contained little of substance on farm policy” because the reference price increases, base acres and crop insurance expansion had been handled in the reconciliation law, and that the primary roadblock was the law’s changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)[6].
What to watch
- Late August: NASS enumerators begin objective yield field counts for corn[4].
- Sept. 11: next WASDE and Crop Production, the first with field measurements behind the corn forecast[1, 4].
- September: a possible second Senate Agriculture Committee attempt at “Farm Bill 2.0”[6].
- 2026 ARC-PLC election: farmers must choose a program for the 2026 crop year[5].
USDA’s monthly price forecasts will move several times before that election. Whether wheat and sorghum stay below their reference prices once the September field counts are in is the open question.