The U.S. Department of Agriculture declared that U.S. farmers are expected to plant 74.8 million acres of soybeans in this springs, which means an 18 percent increase, while reducing corn crops with 8 percent. Cotton acres are also to fall 13 percent.

The changes are expected to happen as a result of record prices for soy reached this year.

USDA worries that the corn acres will be reduced much more than people expected, and the only measure to be taken would be raising the prices for corn, to tempt farmers plant more.

“The acreage shift into soybeans and away from corn was larger than people expected,” said Greg Grow, director of agribusiness for Archer Financial Services, according to Bloomberg.com. “The markets sense we now need to raise corn prices at the expense of soybeans,” to motivate the farmers to plant corn this year, Grow said.

Another reason for increasing soybean acreage could be that the soy crops produce nitrogen fertilizer by themselves, which makes them less expensive than corn crops.

“Corn is a crop that has much higher input costs, especially with regard to nitrogen that is now over $900 per ton,” said Joel Karlin, a product manager at Western Milling in Goshen, California, as Bloomberg.com reports.

USDA discovered that growers intended to plant more soybeans than corn this year, following a survey of 86,000 at the beginning of March.

The state that will have the largest increase in soybean plantings is Iowa, with nearly 1.25 million acres, while Nebraska is to be on the second place, with 1.2 million acres.