In case you missed it, an article Tuesday from Bloomberg’s Jeff Wilson detailed the headline, “Rising Corn Acreage Seen Failing to Meet Increased U.S. Feed, Ethanol Use. “Mr. Wilson is discounting the ability of American farmer before the most even get a chance to put a seed in the ground. What makes his case even worse is that he expects supply to fall short of demand with a large increase in corn acreage.

Wilson cites increasing demands from ethanol and livestock as the reason for the farmer’s projected failure. But someone might want to remind Mr. Wilson that farmers have been meeting increased demands since the beginning of time.  As the world’s population has continued to rise, so has our farmer’s productivity. Today, a farmer feeds an average of 155 people per year compared to 73 people per year in 1970.

Wilson goes into short detail that nearly 40% of our corn supply will go towards corn ethanol production but fails to mention that 1/3 of that 40% will come back in the form of distiller’s grains, a high-protein livestock feed which displaced the need for one million bushels of corn in the United States during 2010 with overall production at around nine billion metrics tons. Ethanol production only removes the starch from the kernel allowing for the rest of nutrients to be fed as a replacement to corn.

Technology like precision agriculture and advanced seed genetics has allowed famers to double their corn yields in the last 20 years on less land as there is currently around 32 million acres out of production in conservation reserve programs.

As farmers continue to increase their productivity, they have also increased their environmental awareness during the last 20 years as precision agriculture has decreased emission per bushel by 30% and decreased energy use per bushel by 37%. Practices like no-till have reduced runoff and erosion and innovative fertilization methods have allowed farmers to produce 70% more corn per ounce of fertilizer.

If there’s one message to relay to Bloomberg’s Jeff Wilson it’s this…Don’t underestimate the ability of the American farmer to produce!

Corn Comments Podcast with Jim Woster.

It’s a great day to stand up for corn and it’s a great time to consider becoming a member of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association. If you join before the end of the business day on March 31, 2011 you will be entered in a contest to win a $1,000 seed certificate to the company of your choice. Your SDCGA membership also makes you a member of the National Corn Growers Association. Becoming a member has a number of benefits  and our strength as an organization is only as strong as our membership base.

It’s not too early to start thinking about the 20th Annual Corn Cob Open on June 23rd at the Spring Creek Country Club in Harrisburg, South Dakota.

South Dakota Farmers and Ranchers are the True Environmentalists.

With a greater disconnect growing between consumers and the origin of their food a movement has been established to help reconnect and educate consumers about where their food comes from and the production practices used to produce it.

Common Ground, a new partnership between the corn and soybean check-off groups will focus on educating female consumers through conversations about farming and food. With so many misconceptions in today’s media about agriculture and its commodities, Common Ground’s goal is to provide simple answers to the tough questions being raised. Whether the issue is about organics, biotech crops or free-range chickens, Common Ground would like to have a conversation about it with you.

South Dakota is one of five states participating in the program and has three wonderful spokespeople in Laura Nielson, Dawn Scheier and Morgan Kontz. While each of these women come from different backgrounds their passion is one in the same, agriculture. They all live and work on family farms in South Dakota and know firsthand about the quality, affordability and safety of the food being produced on farms all across the country.

Learn more about Common Ground in South Dakota by clicking on FindOurCommonGround.com

You can also join in the conversation by following @SDCommonGroundNow on Twitter.

Spring is coming…we think anyways, and with spring comes another planting season where farmers will start growing the next crop to continue meeting demands for food, feed, fuel and fiber in a world that is growing by 200,000 people per day.

 A lot factors in to growing a quality crop: temperature, precipitation, soil conditions and seed biotechnology.

Biotechnology is simply the genetic enhancement of agriculture and is possibly one of the oldest human activities. Decades of documented evidence show that agriculture biotechnology is a safe and beneficial technology that contributes to both environmental and economic sustainability. Biotechnology crops have done everything from providing better nutrition, resistance to pest and crop disease and drought tolerance with future plans of flood tolerate crops.

Most importantly, biotechnology has enabled farmers to double their corn yields in the last 20 years. Biotechnology has also allowed farmers to use less energy and land while releasing less green house gas emissions.

Land use per bushel of corn is down 37%

Energy use per bushel has decreased 37%

Greenhouse gas emissions have decreased 30%

Biotechnology has also allowed for an increase in the practice of no-till farming allowing left-over crop mulch to cover the ground between growing seasons protecting the soil, decreasing runoff and erosion.

With the world expected to grow by 2.5 billion people by the year 2050, biotechnology will continue to be a necessary tool in order for farmers to increase productivity, maintain environmental sustainability and to continue meeting global food demands.

The world’s ethanol production will reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 105 million tons in 2011 according to 2 Consultants Inc. at the World Biofuels Market conference in Toronto, Canada.

Worldwide ethanol production totaled 22.6 billion gallons in 2010 which reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 101 million tons equaling 276,000 tons per day or the equivalent of 18.7 million cars being taken off of the road. Projections for 2011 show a 3% increase in production will continue to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 9%.

Global ethanol production is currently replacing the need for one million barrels of oil per day which would have produced 540,000 tons of greenhouse gases.

 “Ethanol has a number of benefits, but lowering emissions and bettering the environment gets overlooked all too often,” said South Dakota Corn Utilization President, David Fremark, a farmer and rancher from Miller, South Dakota. “Besides lowering emissions, ethanol is also allowing countries around the world to become more energy independent.”

Research like this is just another example of how farmers really are the True Environmentalists as they continue to meet demands for food, feed, fiber and clean-burning fuel that is benefitting the environment and making our world a better place to live.

Corn Comments Podcast with Jim Woster.

It’s not too early to start thinking about the 20th Annual Corn Cob Open on June 23rd at the Spring Creek Country Club in Harrisburg, South Dakota.

It’s a great day to stand up for corn and it’s a great time to consider becoming a member of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association. If you join before the end of the business day on March 31, 2011 you will be entered in a contest to win a $1,000 seed certificate to the company of your choice. Your SDCGA membership also makes you a member of the National Corn Growers Association. Becoming a member has a number of benefits  and our strength as an organization is only as strong as our membership base.

South Dakota Farmers and Ranchers are the True Environmentalists.