April 2010 -- In a generation where only 2% are working in agriculture, and American consumers are being educated by misleading media such as Food, Inc., we need to be prepared with the truth to defend our industry.
One bushel of corn is 56 pounds. That means U.S. farmers produce an average of more than 9,000 pounds of corn per acre.
If U.S. farmers used crop production practices from 1931 to produce an amount of corn equivalent to the 2008 crop, it would require 490 million acres - an area more than 120 million acres larger than Alaska.
The U.S. produces about 40% of the world’s corn - using only 20% of the total area harvested in the world.
Individuals or families own 82% of corn farms. Another 6% are family-held corporations.
Less than 15% of U.S. corn acres are irrigated.
Farmers today produce 70% more corn per pound of fertilizer than as recently as the 1970s.
Corn farmers have reduced total fertilizer use by 10% since 1980.
According to the USDA, one acre of corn removes about 8 tons of carbon dioxide from the air in a growing season at 180 bushels per acre produces enough oxygen to supply a year’s needs for 131 people.
Corn production has marched steadily upward for decades while using fewer acres.
American farmers produced the five largest corn crops in history during the past five years. Even after supplying food-makers, ranchers, ethanol producers and grain exporters, America will again be able to save 10% of this year’s harvest for the future.
Farmers today grow five times as much corn as they did in the 1930s - on 20% less land. That is still 13 million acres, or 20,000 square miles, twice the size of Massachusetts.
The yield per acre has skyrocketed from 24 bushels in 1931 to 154 now, or a six-fold gain. And the Agriculture Department expects the average yield per acre to double in the next 25 years.
