Trends in Production Practices and Costs of the U.S. Corn Sector

Corn for grain is a major field crop in the United States, with wide-ranging uses including animal feed, ethanol, food, beverages, industrial products, and exports. The costs and returns for corn for grain production in the United States have undergone numerous changes over the past several decades. Nationally representative data covering 1996–2018 reveals that over the roughly 20-year period, the U.S. corn industry has increased acreage planted to corn, achieved higher yields except during drought years, and increased overall productivity per planted acre. Concurrently, the real price of corn decreased from 1996 through 2005, climbed through 2012, and then declined again, leading to fluctuating net returns, which peaked in 2011. A combination of long-term factors has influenced demand for corn, including growing demand for feed to meet rising global meat consumption and expanding biofuel production, as well as periodic weather-related international production shortfalls and declining stocks, while weather, seed technologies, precision agriculture technologies, and irrigation were major factors that influenced the supply and cost of production.