In late February, farmers from all over the United States gather in Houston, Texas to watch the crowning of champions, the winners of the National Corn Yield Contest. Every year, thousands of participants brush up on his 17-page rulebook for the contest and try to plow, plant and fertilize their way into the record books. What is their purpose? To extract as much corn as possible from each square meter of farmland.
The overall winner in 2023, in 2021, 2019, and nine previous years, was Charles City, Virginia, farmer David Fulla. Hula is like the Michael Phelps of the corn yield race. He sets records, breaks them, and comes back for more. In 2023, his corn production was 623.84 bushels per acre, more than 3.5 times the national average.
While it may seem like a bit of country drivel to have so many farmers competing to win the national wreath, Hula’s record captures something important. This means all the tools at a farmer’s disposal: high-yielding seed varieties, harmonious combinations of pesticides and herbicides, precisely applied fertilizers, and exactly the right amount of water when needed. It shows how much food you can grow using . Getting these factors right could allow farmers to dramatically increase the amount of food they produce on a given piece of land, potentially freeing up land elsewhere for forestry and rewilding.
a new research We looked at crop yields from 1975 to 2010 to see where crop yields were lagging behind and where they were ahead. The results give interesting hints about where farmers and policy should focus to feed more people without converting more land to farms. More importantly, they suggest some major areas where very high yields may represent a missed opportunity when it comes to feeding the world in a more sustainable way. is.
The winners of the National Corn Yield Contest demonstrate the amazingly high yields that farmers can achieve, but most farmers around the world do not have access to the best farming techniques. As a result, their yields are lower, leading to a concept called the yield gap. Roughly speaking, this is the difference between the theoretical maximum amount of crops a farmer could grow per hectare in a given climate and the actual amount of crops a farmer could grow, if everything went perfectly.
To see the actual yield differences, compare two important corn producing countries: the United States and Kenya. In the United States, average yield About 10.8 tons per hectare, compared to 1.5 tons in Kenya. The United States is very close to the theoretical maximum yield for maize, but Kenya is far below the theoretical maximum yield given climate differences. In other words, the yield gap in Kenya is about 2.7 tonnes per hectare below the theoretical maximum, whereas the US yield gap is almost negligible.
James Gerber, a data scientist at the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown and lead author of the paper, said yield disparities are important because they tell us where farms could be much more productive. . Increasing yields in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly important. the hungriest part The world population is projected to be Double by 2050.
