Corn: It's What Grows Here

Before getting out here, I didn't really think about what kind of land Minnesota had. Since getting out here, I've actually been shocked by the miles and miles of corn stretching on either side of the highways. It's been neat to see the shoots hardly higher than my ankles grow into stalks 6 feet tall since I got out here. Another surprise to me when I first got out here occurred while watching the evening news. Instead of Nasdaq and Dow stock updates, the newscaster told me that the price of a bushel of corn had dropped. I think I tipped my head to the side and had to think hard about why that should matter to me. Amused, I remembered, that I was in the middle of ag USA. Of course, it matters to farmers how much their corn is selling for!

By now you've picked up on my fascination with this farming region that lilts my beloved country music from nearly every radio. While at a motocross race this past weekend with my clinical coach's husband, I jumped on the opportunity to ask some questions about Minnesota farming. I figured the man was born and raised in here so he should be a reliable source. (For this post, I checked the facts online.)

The top four major cash crops are, in order: corn (~50%), soy beans (~30%), wheat (~7%), and sugar beets (~5%).

Before you go on assuming that the corn is the sweet kind that you and I pick up at the farmer's market or local grocery store, let me tell you the truth. These rows of corn that stretch in every direction is field corn. It is used in plastics and a bunch of other manufactured products.

Soy beans grow around the southern parts, too. Then there's wheat and alfalfa. Potatoes grow in the sandier northern Minnesota soil. And sugar beats, used to make sugar, grow in the western parts.

Midwesterners are dutiful patriots compared to West Coasters. You won't struggle to find an American flag!