Missouri farmers plant more corn crop

This year's crop is second only to 2004.

By Kyle Daly

Published Aug. 21, 2007

Ears, ears, everywhere.

According to a press release from the Missouri Corn Growers Association, the state is experiencing its second-largest corn harvest with a projected amount of 463 million bushels, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture crop production report. This year's harvest will fall just short of 2004's record yield of 466 million bushels, said Becky Grisham, the director of communications for the Missouri Corn Programs Staff.

Grisham said having a large harvest benefits more than farmers.

"It will create a rippling effect," she said. She went on to say that entire communities would experience an economic boost.

Missouri isn't the only state expected to have a large harvest. The USDA's National Agriculture Statistics Service has estimated that approximately 13.1 billion bushels of corn will be produced by the harvest nationwide, compared to the 2004 record of 11.8 billion bushels.

The MCGA's press release also stated that Missouri farmers planted 30 percent more corn this year compared to last.

"We have demand for more corn than we used to," MCGA President Mike Geske said. "It's important to corn consumers to keep the prices from going too high. It has to be affordable for livestock growers and it has to be affordable for the ethanol plants. So, it was crucial to have a big harvest this year."

The ethanol industry has caused many corn growers across the nation to increase their crop size this year. According to the National Corn Growers Association's Web site, almost 20 percent of the country's corn output was used in ethanol production in 2006.

"Farmers make profit off of volume," Missouri Department of Agriculture spokesman Chris Klenklen said. "The more they grow, the better off they are."

But the ethanol industry doesn't have the highest demand of corn in the state.

"In Missouri, our livestock and poultry production will continue to create the largest demand for corn and soybean meal," Klenklen said.

The U.S. Drought Monitor has labeled most of the counties in Missouri as suffering from abnormally dry conditions. Some of the counties, most of which are in the southeast, are even experiencing moderate drought conditions, which is drier than abnormally dry on the dryness scale used by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

"The final size of the corn crop is still in question," Geske said. "Until the drought is over, we won't know exactly how big it will be. For the most part, the drought areas are around the fringe of the central Corn Belt region."

The Corn Belt is the north central part of the Midwest between western Ohio and eastern Nebraska and

northeastern Kansas.

"It doesn't appear to be having too great of an effect on the national supply of corn," Geske said. As of Aug. 14, the U.S. Drought Monitor has labeled the extreme or exceptional places of the drought as being inside and around Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Southern California.

Grisham said when it comes to weather, the farmers never really know what they are going to face.

"Drought, extreme frost and even extreme flooding are always going to affect the crops," she said.

Geske said that despite the drought, there will still be a large corn crop.

"A drought is very, very painful for the farmers that are affected by it," he said. "There is still going to be a lot of corn."