The Truth About Corn

• 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.