Corn is one of few crops that is not found in the wild. It’s a domesticated grass bred by natives in Central America, developed from a grass called teosinte. In 16th century Columbo brought it to Europe.
Today corn is grown around the world, except Antarctica and it’s one of the globe’s most widely used food staples.
In the United States corn is the largest crop grown, it produces more than 40% of the world’s corn. In many other countries, its production also takes up a larger share in farming.
Top 5 countries for corn production: (2012)
| Country | Production in tones |
|---|---|
| United States | 273,832,130 |
| China | 208,258,000 |
| Brazil | 71,296, 478 |
| Argentina | 25,700,000 |
| Mexico | 22,069,254 |
Beside food and animal feed usage, there are more than 3,500 different uses for corn and it’s in all sorts of products, from peanut butter to batteries. Corn can be processed into numerous products like starch, sweeteners, corn oil, beverages and fuel ethanol, which production takes 40% of all produced corn.
Corn starch can be made into plastics, fabrics, adhesives, and many other chemical products. It can be used also in a variety of products such as frozen pizza – making sure your pizza has a nice crispy crust.
It’s very important to farm corn, thus it helps reduce global warming and greenhouse gas effect. According to the USDA, one acre of corn removes about 8 tons of carbon dioxide from the air in a growing season. At 180 bushels per acre, corn produces enough oxygen to supply a year’s needs for 131 people.
Farmers today grow five times as much corn as they did in the 1930s – on 20 percent less land.
- 1906 = corn yielded 31.7 bushels per acre
- 2008 = corn yielded 153.9 bushels per acre
Corn yields in the United States 1860-2010
To achieve this they started to use tools ie. softwares, to help them make better-informed decisions and to use their resources more sustainably.
AGRIVI software help farmers to achieve better and higher yield, by planing of all their production in advance, tracking all resources like fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, mechanization, people and also by protecting their crops on time, because pests can significantly reduce a yield or even destroy it.
To prevent this, AGRIVI alerts farmers about pest and disease occurrence, according to weather conditions on each field, so they can prepare for appropriate treatment. For corn you’ll find a plenty of pests with brief description and active substances to treat them, whether you have conventional, organic or integrated farming.
AGRIVI offer a variety tools to help farmers managing their production. Beside record-keeping and pest alarms, it has reports for each part of production and also powerful analytics.
Every year, every day, farmers make decisions about growing crops. This decisions are based on the information they have on-hand. So make a decision, start to grow corn and use AGRIVI system.
