Thank you, Gary, for these insights. The video explanation is very good, but I’ll have to listen to it again. It could also be featured on the NAMA LinkedIn page, which is followed now by over a thousand people, for additional exposure. It seems this is another policy area, in addition to the grain standards issue for proso, that about which we might put out a brief? Don DO, EL, MI, US NAMA On Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 1:11 PM Gary Wietgrefe via Collab < collab@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
Regarding Item 4: Proso millet harvest data. 2025 Proso harvest data will not come out until the second Friday in January 2025. I would be extremely surprised if the 2024 proso planting numbers are even close to USDA June 2024 estimates. Since 2020 when there is an increasing planting trend, USDA overestimates June plantings by 20%; whereas when there is decreased proso planting trend, USDA underestimates by 8.7%. Why? Very little proso is planted when the annual June survey is estimated.
Secondly, to make up for the drastically wrong estimates for June's current year proso planting estimate, it is corrected the following year. Meaning, the following year changes the previous year's June estimate. To me that's unethical. For example, June 2020 estimated 2020 proso planting at 511,000 acres. In the June 2021 proso planting estimate, the June 2020 planting was changed to 609,000 acres. In June 2021 proso plantings were estimated at 600,000 acres, but in the June 2022 report it changed 2021 planting to 725,000. Every year it changes!
Oversupply of other grains have driven down proso prices. Expect millets worldwide to be suppressed. When proso is high and out of line with other grains (as in 2020 until spring 2023) expect proso plantings to exceed demand. For review, see my proso pricing YouTube video https://youtu.be/pVQclIw5Rbw?si=4wwVL5pkSdCR0KHh .....Gary Wietgrefe [image: image.png]
On Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 5:00 AM <collab-request@lists.millets2023.space> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. CSA News article on finger millet, & a conf. presentation (Don Osborn) 2. Article on the 2024 teff harvest in the US (Don Osborn) 3. NYTImes on proso, teff & sorghum (Don Osborn) 4. Proso millet harvest for 2024 in US & Canada? (Don Osborn)
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Message: 4 Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2024 06:57:51 -0500 From: Don Osborn <don@milletsalliance.org> To: "collab@lists.millets2023.space" <collab@lists.millets2023.space> Subject: [Collab] Proso millet harvest for 2024 in US & Canada? Message-ID: < CA+RHibX2-ZOBQfMY8O-diOkcbrArAS22PFUXJrYppW9HH3pywg@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
In looking for any news on the proso millet harvest this year, I did not see any news items.
The US National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Colorado Field Service put out a release on 1 June 2024 on the acreage planted in Colorado of several crops including proso. That reported a decline in acreage planted. See:
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Colorado/Publications/News_Rel...
A global forecast for production of millets also shows a decline (of 4%), due to "large stocks and low demand." Using here the Mundus Agri site (Germany), which references data from China and cites the USDA, at
https://www.mundus-agri.eu/news/millet-global-production-decline-4-20232024.... . Unfortunately the statistics lump together all millets under the single heading of "millet." China and Niger, for example, are not growing the same type of plants.
Any further information or perspectives on the proso harvest in North America, and prospects for 2025, would be appreciated.
Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance
