// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs the Corn Belt a-maize-ing?
Corn Belt | |
|---|---|
Agricultural or cultural region of the United States | |
 2022 production of corn in the United States | |
| Country |  United States |
| States |  Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Michigan Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Dakota Ohio South Dakota Wisconsin |
110 or greater grain car
100 to 109 
Less than 99 
Announced facility (2014)
The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States and part of the Southern United States that, since the 1850s, has dominated corn production in the United States. In North America, corn is the common word for maize. More generally, the concept of the Corn Belt connotes the area of the Midwest dominated by farming and agriculture, though it stretches down into the South as well reaching into Kentucky.[1][2]
Geography
[edit]There is lack of consensus regarding the constituents of the Corn Belt, although it often includes Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan, western Ohio, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota, and parts of Missouri.[3] It also sometimes includes South Dakota, North Dakota, all of Ohio, Wisconsin, all of Michigan, and Kentucky.[4]
The region is characterized by level land and deep fertile soils with high concentrations of organic material and nitrogen.[5]
As of 2008, the top four corn-producing states were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota, accounting for more than half of the corn growth in the U.S.[6]
More recently, the Corn Belt was mapped at the county level using the Land use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS),[7] along with animated maps of changes in time (2010–2016).[8]
History
[edit]William Scully (1821–1906), from a wealthy landowning Catholic family in West Tipperary, Ireland, immigrated to Chicago in 1851. He bought up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Corn Belt farmland in the Midwest, and rented it to tenants. By 1906 he owned 225,000 acres in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, renting it out to 1200 tenants.[9]
On account of new agricultural technology developments between 1860 and 1970, the Corn Belt went from producing mixed crops and livestock into becoming an area focused strictly on wheat-cash planting. After 1970, increased crop and meat production required an export outlet, but global recession and a strong dollar reduced exports and created serious problems even for the best farm managers.[3]
In 1956, former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, a pioneer of hybrid seed, declared that the Corn Belt had developed the "most productive agricultural civilization the world has ever seen".[10]
Most corn grown today is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry.[citation needed] In recent decades, soybeans have grown in importance.
By 1950, 99% of corn has been grown from hybrids.
EPA ecoregion
[edit]In 1997, the USEPA published its report on the United States' ecoregions, in part based on "land use". Its "Level III" region classification contains three contiguous "Corn Belt" regions, Western (47), Central (54), and Eastern (55), stretching from Indiana to eastern Nebraska.[11][12]
See also
[edit]
- Breadbasket
- Canadian Prairies, Canada's 'Breadbasket'
- Central Black Earth Region, segment of the Eurasian chernozem belt that lies within Central Russia
- Grain elevator
- Palliser's Triangle, Canada's semi-arid grain production region
- Peak wheat
- William Scully (Irish-American landlord), by 1900 the largest landowner in the Corn Belt and the USA
References
[edit]- ↑ Hansen, John Mark. Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981. American Politics and Political Economy Series. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. p. 138.
- ↑ McIlwraith, Thomas F.; Muller, Edward K. (September 13, 2001). North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 186. ISBN 978-0-7425-0019-8.
- 1 2 Hart (1986)
- ↑ "2007 Census Ag Atlas Maps". U.S. Department of Agriculture. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
- ↑ "Corn Belt | region, United States". Encyclopedia Britannica. May 1, 2024. Archived from the original on May 3, 2015. Retrieved December 22, 2025.
- ↑ USDA State Fact sheets
- ↑ Kipka, Holm; Green, Timothy R.; David, Olaf; Garcia, Luis A.; Ascough, James C.; Arabi, Mazdak (January 1, 2016). "Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time". Soil and Tillage Research. 155: 233–249. doi:10.1016/j.still.2015.08.005. ISSN 0167-1987.
- ↑ Green, Timothy R.; Kipka, Holm; David, Olaf; McMaster, Gregory S. (March 15, 2018). "Where is the USA Corn Belt, and how is it changing?". Science of The Total Environment. 618: 1613–1618. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.325. ISSN 0048-9697.
- ↑ Homer E. Socolofsky, "William Scully: Ireland and America, 1840-1900." Agricultural History 48.1 (1974): 155-175.
- ↑ Griffith, Robert; Shapsmeier, Edward L.; Shapsmeier, Frederick H. (September 1, 1971). "Prophet in Poltics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940-1965". The Journal of American History. 58 (2): 496. doi:10.2307/1917665. ISSN 0021-8723. Archived from the original on June 3, 2018.
- ↑ "Ecological Regions of North America: Toward a Common Perspective" (PDF). Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 1997. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
- ↑ "Ecoregion Maps and GIS Resources". United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
Further reading
[edit]- Anderson, J. L. Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945–1972 (2009) 238 pp. ISBN 978-0-87580-392-0
- Bogue, Allan. From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century (1963)
- Cayton, Andrew, et al. eds. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2006) excerpt and text search
- Hart, John Fraser. "Change in the Corn Belt", Geographical Review, Jan 1986, Vol. 76#1 pp. 51–72
- Hudson, John C. Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture (1994)
- Power, Richard Lyle. Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest (1953)
- Snapp, Roscoe R. Beef Cattle Their Feeding and Management in the Corn Belt States (1950)
- Smith, C. Wayne, et al. Corn: Origin, History, Technology, and Production (2004) online edition
- Socolofsky, Homer E. "William Scully's Irish and American Lands 1843-1976." Western Historical Quarterly 9.2 (1978): 149–161. online
- Wallace, Henry Agard. Henry A. Wallace's Irrigation Frontier: On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer 1909 15 articles written by Wallace in 1909; 1991 edition edited by Richard Lowitt, and Judith Fabry
- Agricultural production in the United States
- Agriculture in Illinois
- Agriculture in Indiana
- Agriculture in Iowa
- Agriculture in Kansas
- Agriculture in Kentucky
- Agriculture in Michigan
- Agriculture in Minnesota
- Agriculture in Missouri
- Agriculture in Nebraska
- Agriculture in North Dakota
- Agriculture in Ohio
- Agriculture in South Dakota
- Agriculture in Wisconsin
- Economy of the Midwestern United States
- Midwestern United States
- Belt regions of the United States
- Corn production in the United States
- Agricultural belts
- Ecoregions of Illinois
- Ecoregions of Indiana
- Ecoregions of Iowa
- Ecoregions of Kansas
- Ecoregions of Michigan
- Ecoregions of Minnesota
- Ecoregions of Missouri
- Ecoregions of Nebraska
- Ecoregions of South Dakota
- Ecoregions of Wisconsin