Turkey Talk: Corn, It Has the Juice
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
It's corn
A big lump with knobs
It has the juice
If that made absolutely no sense, find someone in Gen Z or a hip Millennial. We’re talking corn today as we break down the Thanksgiving table, specifically sweet corn. Yes, there is a difference between what we pick for humans and harvest to feed animals. In 2022, American farmers produced almost 5.7 billion pounds of sweet corn. The value of that many kernels comes in right around $809 million dollars.
Now we’re getting personal. How many pounds of sweet corn would you say you eat per year? According to Statista, com, the U.S. per capita consumption of fresh sweet corn amounted to 4.1 pounds in 2022. This is a consumption number that has dropped in recent years. As recently as 2016, the per capita consumption was more than twice that at 8.6 pounds.
And while we can get in the weeds with fresh sweet corn versus sweet corn and who produces more of what where, Florida and Georgia are among the top six production states, joined by California on the warm side and Minnesota, Washinton, and Wisconsin on the cooler end.
