Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.”
The USDA issued its latest crop acreage report for North Carolina on June 28, and the big news is winter wheat acreage. Plantings totaled 990,000 acres, a new record.
The other big new is corn acreage. Corn plantings in the state are expected to total 950,000 acres this year. That’s a 10 percent increase from last year.
Flue-cured tobacco growers say they’ll harvest 170,000 acres this year, which is 4 percent more than a year ago. Commissioner Troxler says world demand for tobacco is contributing to the upswing in acres.
Soybean plantings are forecast to be up 7 percent, to 1.7 million acres. That’s the most acres of soybeans in the state since 2009.
Some crops are seeing drops in acreage this year. Cotton growers intend to plant 420,000 acres this year, a 28 percent decrease from last year. And as expected, peanut growers are planting just 80,000 acres of the crop this year. That’s 25 percent less than a year ago.
There will also be fewer acres of sweet potatoes this year. Growers are planting 58,000 acres of the crop, 8 percent less than last year.
Troxler says the acreage decreases are market-related.
Click on the audio player below to listen to Commissioner Troxler and Rhonda discuss the crop plantings report and news that China Tobacco International is opening an office in North Carolina.
[Audio:http://info.ncagr.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Troxler_7-2.mp3|titles=Today’s Topic for July 2]
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