Corn Belt

"Grain Belt" redirects here. For the beer of the same name, see Grain Belt (beer).

Corn Belt
Agricultural or cultural region of the United States
2018 production of corn in the United States
Country	United States
States	Illinois   Indiana   Iowa   Kansas   Kentucky   Michigan   Minnesota   Missouri   Nebraska   North Dakota   Ohio   South Dakota   Wisconsin

Railroad grain elevator facilities (2014)
110 or greater grain car
100 to 109
Less than 99
Announced facility (2014)

Corn fields in the United States

The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States and part of the Southern United States that, since the 1850s, has dominated corn production in the United States. In North America, corn is the common word for maize. More generally, the concept of the Corn Belt connotes the area of the Midwest dominated by farming and agriculture, though it stretches down into the South as well reaching into Kentucky. ^{[1] [2]}

Geography

There is lack of consensus regarding the constituents of the Corn Belt, although it often includes Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan, western Ohio, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota, and parts of Missouri. ^[3] It also sometimes includes South Dakota, North Dakota, all of Ohio, Wisconsin, all of Michigan, and Kentucky. ^[4] Some people and industries break the Corn Belt down even further and refer to it as the Eastern Corn Belt and the Western Corn Belt. ^[5]

The region is characterized by level land, deep fertile soils, and a high organic soil concentration. ^[6]

As of 2008, the top four corn-producing states were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota, accounting for more than half of the corn growth in the U.S. ^[7]

More recently, the Corn Belt was mapped at the county level using the Land use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS), ^[8] along with animated maps of changes in time (2010–2016). ^[9]

History

William Scully (1821-1906), from a wealthy landowning Catholic family in West Tipperary, Ireland, immigrated to Chicago in 1851. He bought up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Corn Belt farmland in the Midwest, and rented it to tenants. By 1906 he owned and 225,000 acres in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, renting it out to 1200 tenants. ^[10]

On account of new agricultural technology developments between 1860 and 1970, the Corn Belt went from producing mixed crops and livestock into becoming an area focused strictly on wheat-cash planting. After 1970, increased crop and meat production required an export outlet, but global recession and a strong dollar reduced exports and created serious problems even for the best farm managers. ^[3]

In 1956, former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, a pioneer of hybrid seed, declared that the Corn Belt had developed the "most productive agricultural civilization the world has ever seen". ^[11]

Most corn grown today is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry. In recent decades, soybeans have grown in importance.

By 1950, 99% of corn has been grown from hybrids.

EPA Ecoregion

In 1997, the USEPA published its report on the United States' ecoregions, in part based on "land use". Its "Level III" region classification contains three contiguous "Corn Belt" regions, Western (47), Central (54), and Eastern (55), stretching from Indiana to eastern Nebraska. ^{[12] [13]}

Panoramic view

Corn fields near Royal, Illinois

See also

• Agriculture and Agronomy portal
• Geography portal

• Breadbasket
• Canadian Prairies, Canada's 'Breadbasket'
• Central Black Earth Region, segment of the Eurasian chernozem belt that lies within Central Russia
• Grain elevator
• Palliser's Triangle, Canada's semi-arid grain production region
• Peak wheat
• William Scully (Irish-American landlord), by 1900 the largest landowner in the Corn Belt and the USA

References

1. John Mark Hansen, Gaining access: Congress and the farm lobby, 1919–1981 (1991) p. 138
2. Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, North America: the historical geography of a changing continent (2001) p, 186
3. Hart (1986)
4. "U.S. Department of Agriculture". Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
5. "Eastern Corn Belt Vs Western Corn Belt". January 3, 2023.
6. Corn Belt, Encyclopædia Britannica Online
7. USDA State Fact sheets
8. , Kipka et al. 2016, Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time, Soil & Tillage Research, Vol 155, p, 233–249.
9. , Green et al. 2018, Where is the USA Corn Belt, and how is it changing? Sci. Total Environment, Vol. 618, p. 1613-1618.
10. Homer E. Socolofsky, "William Scully: Ireland and America, 1840-1900." Agricultural History 48.1 (1974): 155-175.
11. Edward L. Schapsmeier and Frederick H. Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940–1965 (1970) p, 234
12. "Ecological Regions of North America: Toward a Common Perspective" (PDF). Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 1997. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
13. "Ecoregion Maps and GIS Resources". United States Environmental Protection Agency . Retrieved April 10, 2008.

Further reading

• Anderson, J. L. Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945–1972 (2009) 238 pp.  ISBN   978-0-87580-392-0
• Bogue, Allan. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century (1963)
• Cayton, Andrew, et al. eds. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2006) excerpt and text search
• Hart, John Fraser. "Change in the Corn Belt", Geographical Review, Jan 1986, Vol. 76#1 pp. 51–72
• Hudson, John C. Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture (1994)
• Power, Richard Lyle. Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest (1953)
• Snapp, Roscoe R. Beef Cattle Their Feeding and Management in the Corn Belt States (1950)
• Smith, C. Wayne, et al. Corn: Origin, History, Technology, and Production (2004) online edition
• Socolofsky, Homer E. "William Scully's Irish and American Lands 1843-1976." Western Historical Quarterly 9.2 (1978): 149–161. online

• Wallace, Henry Agard. Henry A. Wallace's Irrigation Frontier: On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer 1909 15 articles written by Wallace in 1909; 1991 edition edited by Richard Lowitt, and Judith Fabry

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