Pizza

American's consume 3 billion pizzas every year! Now that is a lot of pizza, over 100 acres a day in square footage or 350 slices per second! No wonder there is a pizza shop in every little town. We have two in a town of 440!

What made me think of pizza is the slices of corn versus soybean prices. Soybeans are less than 2 times higher than a bushel of corn but corn yields over 3 times what soybeans do.

Soybeans are over half harvested around here but nationally we are almost finished harvesting. Corn harvest basically has not started here so if you grow corn your whole pie is still out in the field.

That wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't gotten over an inch of rain on already pretty damp soils yesterday. Let's assume we are going to get all this corn harvested. Would you rather be selling corn or soybeans today?

I would rather be selling corn by a long shot. Local prices are $6.58 for corn and only $11.75 for soybeans. Even with the excellent soybean yields we have, corn is going to out profit soybeans by a big margin.

I think farmers will be planning on more corn for next year, too, as this won't change overnight or in a few months. Many switched to soybeans this year rather than plant corn after the June 5 crop insurance goal for corn planting. Those who risked planting corn are happy they did.

It's funny how we think about next year in farming when we haven't even finished this one yet. That's just how farming goes, you are always planning on your next move, even if it is a year ahead.

Instead of acres of pizza, I am thinking about acres of corn.

Ed