Barring bad weather, that's good news for everyone from grocery shoppers to ethanol producers and hog farmers, because the big crop would help moderate prices for corn and food. Nelson and his two brothers will plant about 70 percent of their acreage to corn this year, up from 63 percent last year, he said. Schaaf has been planting equal amounts of corn and soybeans for years, but intends to increase his corn acreage by 10 percent this spring. Critics, from meatpackers to...

But we have noticed some recent price trends that have piqued our curiosity and led us to wonder what will happen to soybean and wheat acreage in the coming years. Usually we are content to leave crop price comparisons to extension economists and the marketing services because they are on top of the technical issues on a day-to-day basis. Based on the historic multiples, we would not be surprised to see even more corn acres and fewer soybean and wheat acres than currently expected. At the...

They've been shifting their planting scheme to plant 75 to 85 percent corn while cutting back sharply on their soybean acreage. since 1944," the Farm Bureau reported, noting, "The increase in corn acres came largely at the expense of soybean acres. While switch grass and wood chips and other sources of organic materials theoretically could feed the ethanol plants, right now the plants have an appetite for corn - voracious supplies of corn. In line with Friday's USDA report, Farmer allowed...

But much of the increase is coming out of soybeans, also a critical crop for us. The council has estimated that a total of 21 million new acres of corn will be needed in 2007 and 2008, given the rapidly growing demand for corn from the ethanol industry. The rapid increase in input costs has already shown up in wholesale prices for poultry and will undoubtedly be passed on to consumers, sooner rather than later. That industry has 114 plants in operation, seven being expanded, and 80 under...

The new prices and the size of the possible US winter wheat crops might not be good news for Australian growers as they finalise their winter crop plantings, but the size of the US corn crop will influence grain process across the board. It seems some speculators misread the market and were caught off guard when it became apparent the size of the US corn harvest would be so huge. The USDA said because soybean and corn are quite often interchangeable in parts of the Midwest and South,...

And soy protein, when eaten in the easily available and cheap form of canned soybeans, also is jammed with tons of fiber, potassium, iron, zinc and antioxidants. With this in mind, it's pretty clear that the jury is in with a positive verdict as concerns soy proteinwhen eaten and not taken in supplements. In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration permitted soy food purveyors to proclaim the potential health effects of soy on their packages. In fact, learning about soy protein might incite...