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South Dakota ag advocates commemorate Earth Day

South Dakota agriculture advocates gathered in Sioux Falls yesterday (Wednesday) to commemorate Earth Day.

One of the speakers was David Fremark ofMiller, president of the South Dakota Corn Council. Fremark discussed a recent Farm to Market study that shows corn farmers are using 37 percent less energy to produce a bushel of corn than they did 20 years ago.

“Not only that, emissions per bushel—in other words,the emissions put out into the air by equipment used to raise corn—decreased 30 percent in that 20-year time,” Fremark says.

Fremark says farmers are the original environmentalists and stewards of the land. “We’re using 37 percent less land today to produce thatbushel of corn—as well as soil erosion. Soil erosion has decreased 69 percent in those 20 years.”

At the same time, Fremark says, America’s corn growers have achieved impressive yield improvements. In 1944, for example, the 85 million acres planted to corn in the U.S.produced a total crop of about two-point-eight billion bushels. In 2007, those 85 million acres yielded a crop of thirteen-point-one billion bushels.