Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour, where he and a team of 100 volunteers inspect corn and soybean fields across seven states. Grete talks about the careful process of gathering data and making yield predictions that are closely watched by farmers, investors, and the agricultural industry. He highlights the states expected to lead the way in this year’s strong harvest and offers a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing accurate forecasts.
With Major League Baseball pushing toward the playoffs and the National Football League and college football seasons beginning, let’s use a sports analogy to set up Brian Grete’s month. He spends four days as a head coach who leads 100 players across the field. Although, in his case it is about 2,000 fields across seven states.
Those four days then culminate with the most intense, stressful, exhausting, mentally and physically draining night that he experiences.
“It’s a long night. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of number-crunching,” Grete explained to American Farmland Owner from his office in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
But this head coach can’t wait to get back on the field next season.
Grete serves as editor of the Pro Farmer newsletter, a position that he has held for the past decade. He also leads the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour, an annual massive undertaking where volunteers inspect corn and soybeans across seven states.
The results are anxiously anticipated in a variety of areas – farming, processing, distribution, investing, and the media – as a predictor of expected crop yields and possible challenges due to drought, flooding, or disease.
Brian Grete bio
Pro Farmer Editor since 2014
Former senior market analyst/managing editor, Professional Farmers of America (Pro Farmer)
FLASHBACK: Pro Farmer Editor Brian Grete describes weather-damaged fields that he found during the Midwest Crop Tour in 2020. Watch the video here.
AFO talked with Grete the week after this year’s annual inspection that helps determination production predictions. “It’s a lot of back and forth between our team in terms of what we think the number will ultimately be,” Grete said. “At the end of the day, we put out the best number for corn and the best number for soybeans that we can come up with.”
He knows reputation is on the line, both his and Pro Farmer’s. Pro Farmer has led the Crop Tour since 1993. Those decades of experience guide the forecast.
“I wouldn’t put it out with our name on it if I didn’t believe…100% at that moment, to be what we think the production and yields would be.”
Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Minnesota
Nebraska
Ohio
South Dakota
After getting the reports from approximately 100 volunteers who looked at the progress in the fields of the seven states (along with any damage), huddling with his top team to compile the data, and making projections, Grete said the 2024 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour expects record yields for corn and beans.
Grete and his team project corn yields to push to nearly 15 billion bushels nationally based on what they saw in the seven key states and expect soybeans to reach 4.74 billion bushels.
(Pro Farmer 2024 Crop Estimates. Image courtesy: Pro Farmer.)
RELATED: Here are the results and predictions from the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. It includes daily reports from the scouts as they traveled through seven states. Read that here.
Grete said that his team can make national projections because of what they have seen in key areas during the Midwest Crop Tour. But this year, some states will carry an even larger share of the load.
“We projected a record yield. And typically, to get a record, you have to have a lot of the states participate,” Grete said. “And this year the heavy hitters are through the central Corn Belt.”
He identified five in that lineup. “Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska are going to carry a lot of weight this year.”
Some other states outside those big five have experienced challenges due to the weather or disease and that could limit overall production there.
Grete cited the Southeast, mid-South, Delta, and Great Plains states as regions that would typically need strong performances for his team to forecast a record year. But that isn’t the case this year.
“Some of those areas are hurting,” he said.
He wrapped up with a baseball analogy about this year’s core performers. “The heavy hitters are coming up with the bases loaded, or multiple men in scoring position.”
And Grete expects those heavy hitters – Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Nebraska – to deliver when harvest arrives. “And that's what we're seeing this year with the corn and soybean crops.”
Comments