>Even for grain, yields in the United States are not
>especially striking. For example, in 1998, farms in the United States
>produced about 2.67 metric tons per hectare of wheat according to the
>Department of Agriculture, slightly above the world average of 2.66.
>Mexico produced 4.32, Belgium-Luxembourg 7.95, and the Netherlands
>8.94.
and
>Corn yields in the United States were
>just shy of 8.0 metric tons per hectare in 1988. The average for the entire
>European Union was 9.0, where yields varied from 3.33 in Sweden to an
>even 10.0 in Greece.
According to the USDA tables at <http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd/intro.asp?circ_id=1>, US wheat production is just slightly above the world average - 2.90 vs 2.87 tonnes per hectare in 2004-2005 (though note that that's up 9% from the yield you cite from 1998). Mexico is indeed considerably more productive - 4.44 - but the area under cultivation is tiny, about 1/40 that of the US, and just 0.2% of the world total (vs. over 9% for the US). So could it be that Mexico devotes only a small amount of prime land to wheat, making the comparison invalid? The USDA doesn't even report on the Benelux countries anymore, either, so they must also have been quite tiny. China, on the other hand, is massively productive in wheat - 4.18, with an even larger area under cultivation than the US. At 2.71, India also comes close to the US.
But the numbers on corn don't support your argument at all. US corn yields per hectare were 10.07 tonnes, more than twice the world average (and up considerably from your 8.0 number from 1988). No other country comes close. Canada approaches 84% of US yields, but with only a fraction of the area the US devotes to corn.
You try to make the US sound like a bit of a slouch, but it's not really. Unless I'm missing something in reading these numbers.
Doug
----
Michael Perelman wrote:
>Wrong, Jim. I did not reply to your article. I never saw it until
>I got my copy. I
>wrote an article on my own.