Today we left Bloomington, headed north 50 miles and then went due west to Iowa City, Iowa. Joining us was a group of 8 that included one from England, one from Germany two for from Brazil. This group followed us for the whole day and was here on the tour to determine how this crop will affect their marketing and planting plans.
The original tour was comprised primarily of farmers, but now they are probably less than 50% of the tour. Many people come from Asia, Europe and South America and they are always very interested in learning more about American agriculture.
The yields that we say in Illinois was better than I expected at about 150 bushels per acre on our route. As we passed into Iowa, we found a stretch of about 10 miles of completely dead corn. Of course our best yield of the day was the next one after this stretch.
The farmers that got good rain have good corn, there just is not enough of it this year.
Tomorrow is the last data and I look forward to seeing the final numbers.
Categories: Ag Policy, Commodity Marketing, Demographics, Farm Industry Trends
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August 23rd, 2012 at 5:58 am
[...] Farm Tax Blogger Paul Neiffer hits Iowa on his corn and bean sightseeing: The International Flavor of the Crop Tour [...]