The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its official 2012 crop production summary for a variety of field crops, and the data confirm that it was a very good year in North Carolina farmers.
Commissioner Troxler tells Rhonda that farmers needed a good year to rebound from the tornadoes, drought and Hurricane Irene that had hurt many growers in 2011.
In 2012, new records were set for several crops:
Two other crops – corn and tobacco – didn’t set records, but still rebounded from an awful 2011. The corn yield was 117 bushels per acre. Total production was 96 million bushels, a 40 percent increase from 2011. The flue-cured tobacco yield was 2,300 pounds per acre. Total production was 377 million pounds, a 52 percent increase.
While field crops enjoyed a really good year, the state’s apple crop didn’t. Apple production suffered because of a late freeze in the mountains, which wiped out some farmers’ entire crop. USDA’s official numbers will be released Jan. 25, but Commissioner Troxler says yields likely will be considerably lower than 2011’s production, which was 140 million pounds.
Click below to listen to the Commissioner and Rhonda talk about the 2012 crop summary and the rarity of having good prices and good yields in the same year. You can view a pdf of the USDA summary here.
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