I have been seeing a lot of information from the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the National Corn Growers Association recently on facts about corn and I would like to share some of them with you.
FARM FAMILIES
U.S. farms may be diverse in size and scope, but the USDA reports that the vast majority are family operations.
- 95% of corn farms are family farms
- 90% of corn is grown on family farms
- Family farms manage 84% of all farm acreage
- Family farms represent 78% of all farm sales
KERNELS OF TRUTH
The next facts about corn come from Iowa Corn and they are called “Kernels of Truth”. On their brochure it says, “Corn ingredients are important in many foods, but they are often present in amounts too small to justify price changes at the grocery store. The graph below illustrates how much corn is in many popular items at the grocery store.”
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| *Does not include other feed ingredients that may be in the ration. |
FOOD DOLLAR SERIES
On March 14th, the USDA published “A Revised and Expanded Food Dollar Series–A Better Understanding of Our Food Costs.” On the Iowa Corn website it shows that “the farmers share of the food dollar is even less than originally thought. According to the report, just 11.6 cents of every dollar spent on food makes it back to the farmer.”
On March 14th, the USDA published “A Revised and Expanded Food Dollar Series–A Better Understanding of Our Food Costs.” On the Iowa Corn website it shows that “the farmers share of the food dollar is even less than originally thought. According to the report, just 11.6 cents of every dollar spent on food makes it back to the farmer.”
“Only a small percentage – 11.6 cents – of our food dollars actually pays for the production of the raw commodity itself,” said Dick Gallagher chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and a farmer from Washington. “I think it is easy to see that what you pay at the store has even less to do with the price of corn.”
“The USDA food dollar series measures annual expenditures by U.S. consumers on domestically produced food. The new food dollar replaces the old marketing bill series, which has been discontinued because of measurement problems and limited scope. The industry group’s series identifies the distribution of the food dollar among ten distinct food supply chain industry groups.”
ONE BUSHEL (56 LBS) OF CORN PROVIDES:
- 31.5 lbs of starch or
- 33 lbs of sweetener or
- 2.8 gallons of fuel ethanol or
- 22.4 lbs of PLA fiber/polymer
Plus
- 17.5 lbs of distillers dried grains with solubles*
- 13.5 lbs of gluten feed**
- 2.6 lbs of gluten meal** and
- 1.5 lbs of corn oil
*In dry grind ethanol process.
**In wet mill ethanol process. Gluten feed is 20 percent protein and gluten meal is 60 percent protein.
U.S. CORN AT A GLANCE, 2010
88.2 MILLION
acres planted
81.4 MILLION
acres harvested
12.4 BILLION
bushels produced
$65.97 BILLION
corn crop value
$5.30
average price per bushel
WORLD CORN PRODUCTION, 2010-2011*
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WORLD CORN CONSUMPTION, 2010-2011*
South Africa 421
Egypt 496
Canada 504
Japan 634
India 720
Mexico 1,224
Brazil 1,901
EU-27 2,303
China 6,378
Others 6,854
U.S. 11,480
Total 32,915 Million Bushels
Source: USDA FAS Grain: World Markets and Trade, January 14, 2011
*Marketing Year October 1, 2010-September 30, 2011
*Marketing Year October 1, 2010-September 30, 2011
CORN USES
Of the 2010 corn supply of 14.2 billion bushes:
- Feed & Distillers Grains = 6.1 bil bu
- Ethanol = 3.7 bil bu
- Other U.S. Uses = 1.4 bil bu
- All Exported = 2.3 bil bu
- Held for Future Use = 0.7 bil bu
USDA/PRX Jan. 2011
LEARN MORE
For more information on corn, corn farmers or corn products, click on these websites:
Some information above is from the NCGA’s Corn Facts Brochure, Jan 2011 and from NCGA’s 2011 World of Corn” booklet.
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