Forces affecting change in crop production agriculture

A number of factors are significantly reshaping crop production agriculture in the United States. Consider the following:

Concentration has been on a steady rise for several decades. Today, 75 percent of the value of primary field crop production corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, sorghum, and barley oats is produced by 40 percent of U.S. farms (USDA-NASS, Census of Agriculture, 2007). Productivity increases have been significant. Corn yields increased from an average of 55 bushels per acre in 1960 to 165 bushels in 2009 a 300 percent increase in 50 years.

 Wheat and soybean yields have seen 215 percent and 169 percent increases, respectively, over the same period. Meanwhile, according to the cost and returns survey of USDA's Economic Research Service, variable costs of corn production have declined on a real basis from US$0.94 per bushel in 1975 to an estimated US$0.63 per bushel in 2005.

Producers are adopting larger pieces of equipment and more sophisticated technologies. Some estimate the time to plant and harvest the crop, two of the most time consuming operations, has been cut in half in the last decade, allowing producers to effectively manage more acres within one operation. Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.