Nebraska corn farmers making $2.6 billion investment

From Nebraska Corn Board's Crop Progress update
for April 25.

It takes a lot more than hard work to get the corn crop planted. It also takes money – for everything from seed to fertilizer to all the other inputs it takes to get the crop in the ground and off to a good start. Those purchases come from local seed dealers, cooperatives and dozens of other businesses that benefit from the investment farmers make each spring planting corn.

In Nebraska, that investment comes to some $2.6 billion, which has a significant economic impact on rural communities and the entire state.

“This multi-billion dollar investment, perhaps better known as planting, occurs in just a few weeks every spring,” Don Hutchens, executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board, said in a news release. “It’s a tremendous investment, but one that also is subject to Mother Nature and the whims of outside markets.”

To put the $2.6 billion investment into perspective, Hutchens compared it to the combined construction investments in Lincoln and Omaha. “Over a two-year period, that comes to about $900 million and includes the construction costs of an arena, baseball stadium and a dozen other projects, all very valuable growth investments, but about one-third the investment corn farmers make each and every spring,” Hutchens said.

On average, farmers spend more than $270 per acre to get the crop in the ground and off to a good start, based on estimates calculated by the University of Nebraska Extension. Multiplied by the 9.5 million acres the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates Nebraska farmers will plant this year, provides the $2.6 billion investment by Nebraska corn farmers.

That investment doesn’t include the whole story, though. “Those dollars get circulated through communities and the entire state,” Hutchens said. With a multiplier of 2.5, planting corn this year will actually provide a $6.5 billion economic impact across the state.

Those estimates don’t include labor or land costs, or the cost of irrigating for those farmers who carefully utilize that resource. It also doesn’t include the expense of harvesting, hauling and storing the final crop. All those costs come later and provide their own economic impact.

“While the dollars invested in getting the crop off to a good start are impressive, it also doesn’t include the value of that corn crop once it is harvested,” Hutchens said. “From feed to fuel to fiber, that crop is worth a whole lot more than just bushels of grain sold into the market.”

Corn harvested this fall will be used as feed for livestock and poultry, which results in high-value protein products that Nebraskans and people all over the world enjoy. Ethanol is another important market. That process involves taking corn and creating two products – fuel that helps keep gas prices lower than they otherwise would be and millions of tons of distillers grains, another feed product for livestock and poultry.

Bio-renewable materials like PLA are also made from corn. They are used in everything from plastics to fabrics and replace their petroleum-based counterparts in the process.