The corn-soybean belt is starting to walk North and West

Adaptation begins:

Associated Press:
DES MOINES, Iowa — Warmer and wetter weather in large swaths of the country have helped farmers grow corn, soybeans and other crops in some regions that only a few decades ago were too dry or cold, experts who are studying the change said.
Bruce Babcock, an Iowa State University agriculture economist, said soybean production is expanding north and the cornbelt is expanding north and west because of earlier planting dates and later freezes in the fall.
....
The article is big on quotes from Bruce Babcock, who knows agriculture very, very well.  But it's a little short on hard facts.

But the article does give me an idea...

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 13, 2010 at 7:54 PM

    Not being an ag economist but presumably climate changes the comparative advantage across the board....so are we seeing a domino effect of crop changes in the old corn-soy belt ? How does wheat compare...I am pretty sure it doesn't need the heat, since they grow it in N.Europe (although of course there's hard and soft wheat).

    pcle

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 19, 2010 at 12:07 PM

    Mike, this reminds me of an article I saw in the Madison, WI paper this morning, about record corn yields here exceeding storage capacity:

    http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/article_924a4e0a-db0e-11df-b88d-001cc4c002e0.html

    "We're not necessarily the corn belt in Wisconsin, so for us to hit 270 [bushels per acre] is huge."

    - Sean Cash

    ReplyDelete

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