In its March 31 Planting Intentions report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said U.S. farmers intend to plant some 3.3 million acres of barley in 2010. If that estimate holds, barley acres will fall by some 8 percent from last year’s 3.6 million – and would be well below 2008’s 4.2 million acres.

U.S. barley stocks as of March 1 totaled approximately 157 million bushels, an increase of 22 percent from March 1, 2009, even though barley use increased about 12 percent during the December 2009-February 2010 period when compared to prior year.

U.S. barley supplies remain positive thanks to last year’s good crop when 227 million bushels were produced. In fact, USDA estimated a carryout of 111 million bushels of barley at the end of the current marketing year.

As for sorghum, USDA said U.S. farmers intend to plant some 6.4 million acres this year, a decline of about 4 percent from last year’s 6.6 million acres, should those intentions hold.

Grain sorghum in storage as of March 1 totaled 175 million bushels, down 15 percent from last year. This reduction echoes a 383 million bushels harvest last fall that was below the 472 million bushels harvested in 2008.

USDA estimated that the sorghum carryout would total about 48 million bushels at the end of the current marketing year. That compares to a carryout of 55 million bushels a year ago.