Photo: Garden Beth (Flickr)
Corn stalks rise in front of red barn in Indiana where farmers are planting more of the crop because of increased demand.
Indiana farmers are planning on planting more corn for 2012. Purdue Agricultural Economics Professor Chris Hurt says this comes with the big surge in demand for corn mainly due to ethanol.
“Farmers have been a little bit hesitant, they‘ve been shifting in that direction, but maybe not as quickly as the market would like,” he says. “It‘s still offering very good premiums for corn production over soybeans and wheat.”
Hurt says corn prices continue to rise so rotation and acreage is shifting even more toward corn. As a result, acreage used for wheat or even cotton is shifting toward corn.
He says the nation is looking at about 94 million acres in crop production and corn is dominating planting and production in Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota. The corn expansion may also moderate other food price increases, assuming the weather remains good for planting and harvesting.
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