U.S. farmers plan to go 'heavy on corn' in 2023 despite risks

CHICAGO, Feb 6 (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are planning to boost corn acreage in 2023, eyeing lower prices of fertilizer needed to grow the crop and hoping for a bumper crop after a late season drought withered last year's grain harvest and left U.S. corn supplies near a decade low.

Plans for the upcoming season were made even as doubts mounted about demand and price gains for soybeans outstripped corn late last year. But early acreage forecasts and interviews with farmers show their faith in the biggest U.S. crop has not waned.

A big crop from the world's largest corn exporter, pared with more modest demand as global economic growth cools, could further ease prices for the staple used in fuel and animal feed that have come down after surging to a 10-year high when Russia invaded major corn producer Ukraine a year ago.

The decline in the cost of key inputs such as fertilizer in the second half of 2022 sparked hopes that corn would be profitable in 2023 even though it typically requires a more-active management style and greater financial investment than the No. 2 U.S. cash crop, soybeans.

"We are going to be heavy corn and probably the heaviest on corn we have been in a long time," said Brandon Hunnicutt, who farms 2,300 acres with his father and brother near Giltner, Nebraska.

The budget for his farm's 2023 crops, devised as the 2022 harvest wound down, calls for about 90% of those acres to be devoted to corn, Hunnicutt said. That compares to about 55% ...
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