The most widely grown US crop will total 15.234 billion bushels, the USDA said in its latest set of monthly estimates, surpassing the previous peak of 15.148 billion set in 2016. The final tally was higher than what most analysts polled by Bloomberg expected….The bumper crop can be explained in part by advances in genetically modified seeds, which have improved the resilience of corn plants. But the biggest factor by far is the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
The war disrupted exports out of the Black Sea region and prompted global crop prices to surge. Farmers acted on that signal and planted more. America’s cornfields took up 10% more area than in 2022, according to the USDA report.
Plentiful supplies and lower prices are welcome news for producers of poultry and biofuel, as corn is one of their biggest costs. They’re also likely to help keep a lid on food inflation, which has been moderating for months.
Of course, the other side of the equation means belt-tightening for growers. With the increase in supply outpacing demand, the USDA expects farmers to receive lower average prices for the season.
That’s unwelcome news for agricultural equipment manufacturers, as people are less willing to buy new tractors and other pricey machinery when crop prices are easing. CNH Industrial NV, one of the world’s biggest farm machinery makers, said earlier this week it was reducing salaried workers by 5% as demand declines for its combine harvesters.
Genetically modified seeds are also helping other countries produce plenty of corn, and “global corn reserves are seen climbing to a three-year high.”
Genetically-modified crops help the environment, by reducing the consumption of land, water, pesticides, and fertilizer, and increasing crop yields. As Ars Technica notes,
Improving crop yields helps feed more people, but it’s also good for the environment. The more food that can be grown on each square kilometer of land, the less land that needs to be converted to agriculture. As you can see in this chart from Our World in Data, South Asia produces a lot more cereal crops today than it did in 1980—and all of this growth came from increased crop yields. It’s not using any more land to grow those crops than it was 40 years ago. In sub-Saharan Africa it’s the opposite story. The area is also producing more cereals than in 1980, but almost all of this growth has come from converting more land into farmland. Low crop yields mean that feeding more people comes at the expense of natural habitats.
GM crops might be one way to increase yields. In South Africa, GM maize fields produce 11.1 percent more per hectare on average than non-GM fields—extra maize that would have taken more than 2,000 square kilometers of extra farmland to produce using conventional seeds.
Kenya’s government wanted its farmers to grow pest-resistant, drought-tolerant corn, as pests devour much of its corn crop, and Kenya experienced its worst drought in over 40 years. For five years, drought had decimated Kenya’s corn crop. For eight years, fall armyworm moths had ravaged Kenya’s corn crop, destroying a third of Kenya’s annual production.
So Kenya’s cabinet imported 11 tons of corn seeds genetically modified to be pest-resistant and drought-resistant last year. But this February, four lawsuits were brought over the seeds by an environmentalist group and others, resulting in legal blocks against their distribution. Kenya’s GMO regulator was barred from releasing the seeds, pending a future court hearing. So farmers can’t plant the seeds, keeping them from producing enough food to feed Kenya’s people. Finally, in October 2023, a court lifted the ban on genetically-modified corn. But in the meantime, many people in Kenya went hungry due to the drought.
Some green activists oppose genetic engineering that creates environmentally-friendly crops. Green activists opposed genetically-modified rice that uses less fertilizer than traditional rice, while yielding more food. Similarly, they opposed genetically-modified “golden rice,” notes Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute. Golden rice “has the great potential to prevent blindness in children who live in developing countries caused by Vitamin A deficiency.” Scientists engineered these rice plants to produce beta-carotene. But distribution of them “was thwarted for many years, even though growth and distribution will be via a non-profit.”
In 2003, green activists in the Philippines destroyed a field trial of Golden Rice being conducted by researchers. As food safety expert Gregory Conko noted, “Golden Rice is a humanitarian project—the grains engineered to produce beta carotene to provide a needed Vitamin supplement for poor rice-growing farmers in less developed countries. Activists even tried to convince Filipino farmers that walking through a field of genetically engineered corn could turn farmers gay.”
They did this “despite the considered opinion of dozens of scientific bodies from all around the world” that “genetically engineered crops now on the market are safe for consumers and the environment,” a conclusion reached by “the U.S. National Academies of Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.K.’s Royal Society, and the French Academy of Science.”
Left-wing activists have vandalized other projects to genetically improve crops. For example, Smith notes, “experimental wheat field intended to develop a plant that is resistant to fungal infection was trampled asunder by activists who apparently prefer human starvation to a benign modification of wheat so that it will be more resilient.”
