By Dan Looker, Business Editor
This year, America is wrapping up
a corn harvest from an 8% smaller
acreage that’s still the second largest
since 1944. That reduction in corn
area was enough to drive global corn
acreage down by 1% this year. Foreign money, rebuilding of irrigation, and good weather make the Black Sea region
But if you take U.S. production productive. This year’s corn crops in Russia and Ukraine are up 33% over last year.
out of the picture, global corn acre-
age is up 1%. And all wheat acreage,
including the U.S., is up 3%. Total with exceptional weather over much often grown for feed is the Black Sea
global soybean acreage is up 9%. of the globe, has created a record region.
“Higher prices are encourag- wheat crop that has rebounded 11% It includes new members of the
ing more production around the from last year’s weather disasters. European Union like Bulgaria and
world,” says USDA economist Jerry “It’s an increase roughly the size Romania and parts of the old Soviet
Norton, who chairs the Interagency of the U.S. crop,” Norton says. That Union in Ukraine and Russia.
Commodity Estimates Committee extra wheat, 65 million metric tons,
for the World Agricultural Outlook is almost as big as the 67 million hot SpotS, north and South
Board. The World Board in metric tons (or 2. 46 billion bushels) This year good weather helped
Washington, D.C., puts out the of U.S wheat harvested this year. corn production increase by 128%
much-watched monthly supply-and- Not all of this global expansion is in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary
demand estimates of global crop from new land coming into produc- (just east and up the rich Danube
production. tion, a possibility usually associated River valley from Romania), ac-
with South America, not Europe. But cording to an estimate compiled by
Small increaSeS have huge effect in Europe, corn is displacing lower- analysts for the global Dutch co-op
Those percentages may sound yielding feed grains like barley, says ag lender, Rabobank.
small. They’re not. The harvested Norton. One of the global hot spots Romania, especially, has great
corn area outside of the U.S. is the in corn production and wheat that is potential to improve yields, says
biggest since the mid-1990s. And just Edward Allen, an agricultural
a 3% boost in wheat acres, combined economist with USDA’s Economic
You knew it had to happen.
This year the world is catching up with us.
Two years ago America’s farm-
ers responded to rising demand for
corn for fuel by planting more than
90 million acres – the most since the era of World War II. The bidding war was on between corn, beans, and wheat.
Maps: Paul Bridgford
References:
Archives