By Bonnie Coblentz

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Four major Mississippi crops set production records in 2004, but it took the strength of poultry's $2 billion year to push the state's estimated agriculture value to a record $5.5 billion.

The state's overall value of production is expected to rise 3 percent from the record $5.3 billion set in 2003. Poultry was the big winner, gaining nearly 26 percent to post its new record.

John Anderson, agricultural economist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said poultry's value increased both from production, up 3.5 percent, and price, up 25 percent overall. Prices in early 2004 were 50 percent higher than they were in 2003, but fell in the last half of the year.

"If we don't set a new overall production value record in 2004, we'll be in the ballpark of one. I think that is a surprise to a lot of people since we have lower prices in a lot of the row crops, but most of the increase is because of historically high livestock prices, especially for broilers," Anderson said.

"2003 had a big value of production that was fairly well distributed. This year, we have a higher value of production, but it's distributed very differently," he said.

Anderson said the most striking thing about the farm-gate values is the difference between livestock and crop values.

"Virtually all of our livestock commodities are higher in 2004 than they were in 2003," Anderson said. "On the other hand, prices for almost all of our major row crops are considerably lower than they were in 2003."

Erick Larson, Extension grain crops agronomist, said moderate temperatures and a wet June gave a big boost to the row crops.

"The row crops generally benefitted from plentiful mid-summer rainfall, which replenished soil moisture and helped sustain crops that were maturing during July and August. Excessive wet conditions caused some problems, but did not reduce average yields as much as drought stress normally does," Larson said. "Drought stress is usually the major factor limiting summer crop production in Mississippi."

Cotton blew away its previous record average yield of 934 pounds an acre with 2004's average of 1,000 pounds. However, prices were poor, so the crop is expected to yield a value of $523 million, down 16 percent from 2003.

Larson said corn producers harvested an average of 136 bushels an acre, breaking the previous year's record of 135 bushels. Its farm-gate value fell 26 percent in 2004 to $120 million.

"Corn lost acreage from 550,000 in 2003 to 460,000 in 2004. Prices also were slightly more than 10 percent lower, but that acreage reduction accounted for most of the value decline," Larson said.

Rice broke its old production record by 100 pounds when it posted state average yields of 6,900 pounds per acre in 2004. Prices for this crop also were down, so rice decreased 2 percent in value to $103 million. Grain sorghum lost nearly two-thirds of its acreage to soybeans, bringing the overall crop value to $4 million, a 71 percent decrease.

The economist said soybeans matched their record average yield of 39 bushels an acre set in 2003. Prices were poor, so the value of production was down 13 percent to $334 million.

"In 2003, the Midwest had a terrible soybean production year, but Mississippi had a great year. We were able to take advantage of high prices, pushing up that year's value of production," Anderson said. "2004 was a more normal situation with very high production nationwide and declining prices."

The estimated value of wheat production rose 14 percent to $23 million, sweet potatoes fell 14 percent to $42 million and hay was up 5 percent to $84 million.

Better catfish prices are responsible for that commodity's expected 14 percent increase in value to $278 million.

"Producers have scaled back production because of the very low prices the last three years," Anderson said. "Prices are going to be up about 20 percent for the year, but production was down about 5 percent."

Livestock is up 19 percent in the state to an overall anticipated value of $341 million. Anderson said hogs are an especially bright spot, up 46 percent from 2003 to $62 million.

"Prices have been outstanding and production has increased about 9 percent. There is very strong domestic demand for all meat, including pork, and pork has also benefitted from the disruption in beef exports caused by mad cow disease concerns," Anderson said.

Government payments are expected to be down 30 percent to $333 million. Anderson said some of that decrease was because 2003 payments also included some payments made for the 2002 crop.