The USDA's new Agricultural Projections report for the next 10 years shows prices for major crops decreasing in the next few years "as global production responds to recent high prices."
But after the near-term declines, the report says prices for corn, wheat, oilseeds and many other crops will "remain historically high."
Total U.S. red meat and poultry production is projected to fall this year, then, increase "in response to improved returns and improved forage supplies."
Report coordinator David Stallings says developing countries in Latin America and Asia are expected to pull up the rate of economic growth worldwide, about 3.3 percent a year, but the U.S. is still recovering from the "great recession" of 2007/2008.
"It's been a very slow rate of growth over the last three or four years," says Stallings, "We see that picking up a little bit in 2013 and in 2014 and then returning pretty close to our long-run trend growth rate of 2.6 percent a year. That's a reasonable amount of growth, roughly equivalent of what we had in the first decade of the 21st Century."
U.S. ag exports are projected to keep rising, in part because of the rapid economic growth in the rest of the world.
Source: brownfieldagnews.com