Corn Acerage Increases
As the demand for corn to produce ethanol surges, farmers in the USA are expected to plant the most corn since 1944 this year. According to the Department of Agriculture, it is estimated that farmers will be planting 90.5 million acres (36.6 million hectares) of corn in 2007 alone, a 15 percent increase over 2006.
Corn can fetch a high price so farmers are utilising as much land as they can to produce the crop, at the expense of other crops such as cotton, rice and soybeans. Crops such as cotton tend to have very low profit margins, so the higher prices that corn can fetch are very attractive to most farmers. The higher corn prices are also having a knock-on effect on other areas of commerce – farmland real estate prices have shot up in line with the demand for corn.
Corn harvests depend on the weather. If the weather is good, corn harvests in the US should be enough to meet demand for both food and fuel needs. The increased harvest should also help quell fears in the USA over rising food costs as the extra corn being harvested will help bring down prices.
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