CHICAGO, April 3 (Reuters) - Informa Economics Chief Executive Officer Bruce Scherr said on Tuesday that the firm has raised its forecast of U.S. 2012 corn plantings to 96.4 million acres, from 95.5 million in its previous estimate released March 9.
Speaking at a conference in Chicago, Scherr also said Informa lowered its forecast of U.S. 2012 soybean plantings to 74.2 million acres, from 75.1 million previously.
The firm's acreage figures for both crops are above the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which last week projected U.S. 2012 plantings of corn at 95.9 million acres and soybeans at 73.9 million acres.
If realized, USDA's corn projection would mark the most U.S. acres planted to corn in 75 years. Given favorable weather this spring and summer, the crop could help replenish U.S. corn inventories that are expected to drop to a 16-year low this summer.
Farmers had responded to more favorable projected returns for corn during the winter months by earmarking more acres for the crop. Although soybean prices have rallied in recent weeks, soybean prices need to rally to a larger premium over corn to entice producers to switch to planting the oilseed, Scherr said.
"We were running our calculations early on with a $120 premium for (the return on) corn over soy per acre. We're now down to maybe no advantage for corn, but it doesn't lend for putting in more bean acres," he said on the sidelines of the State of Agribusiness conference.
"It's going to have to go the other way and we haven't seen it happen yet. In fact, the market action right after the USDA report (on March 30) didn't give that much more of an advantage to beans when it was all said and done," he said.
The ratio of new-crop November soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade over new-crop December corn , which traders normally monitor to gauge the acreage battle, widened to 2.51-to-1 after the report and peaked at a high of 2.54-to-1 this week before pulling back.
Planting is off to a good start. USDA reported that 3 percent of the U.S. corn crop had been seeded as of Sunday, matching the fastest pace on record, as farmers took advantage of unusually warm weather in March to get a jump on field work.
Soybeans are typically planted after corn.
