Brazil Grows Two Corn Crops?

Who knew that?  Saw a reference to it, probably from John Phipps or Chris Clayton's feed.  Here's the brief description:

Brazil’s second corn crop, or safrinha, has gained attention in world markets because this year’s dry growing season likely hurt yields. Safrinha corn accounts for about 65% of the country’s corn production.

It's planted in January to March after early-crop soybeans are harvested.  

The fact it's doable on a massive scale suggests to me Brazil has an advantage over US farmers, who are limited in their doublecropping to soybeans after wheat, mostly.   Of course, with global warming we may be able to change that in the future.  We still have an infrastructure advantage over Brazil, if I understand correctly--we've the transportation--rail and barge--to move crops to export ports easier than they currently do.  But that too will change.

Why Rural Areas Went Trump

One factor I haven't seen mentioned (which was IIRC key to Truman's victory in 1948): bad economics for farmers.  Prices are down, land values are down.  For example, per bushel corn prices have declined from $6.89 to $3.61 in four years.

The Post and Corn

Yesterday's Post, as part of a concentration on corn, had an interesting article defending corn. What was interesting was the use of calories per acre:

"In the calorie department, corn is king. In 2014, average yield in the United States was 171 bushels per acre. ... Each bushel weighs 56 pounds and each pound of corn yields about 1,566 calories. That means corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre. ....If you had taken our 2014 corn harvest of 14.2 billion bushels and used it to feed people, it would have met 17 percent of the entire world’s caloric needs.
By contrast, wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million. Rice is also very high-yielding, at 11 million, and potatoes are one of the few crops that can rival corn: They also yield about 15 million ....Other vegetables, while much more nutritious than corn, wheat or potatoes, are far less energy-dense. Broccoli yields about 2.5 million calories per acre, and spinach is under 2 million."

Each person needs about 1 million calories per year.