One only needs to watch a few of those TV informercials before it becomes clear that a lot of effort and money is spent convincing consumers that they’re getting more for less. “This is Craaaazzyyyy Jim here and I have an offer for YOU! In the store, this would cost $300, but I am going to make you an unbelievable Craaaazzyyyy offer today – not, $200, not $100, not $50, but $19.95! And just to show you that I mean business, I’m going to throw in a second product for free, plus you get this nose-hair groomer FREE of charge! All you pay is shipping and handling! Craaaazzyyyy!”

How could you not respond to the offer? The nose-hair groomer alone is worth more than $19.95. The abundance of these types of marketing and promotion efforts indicates that they must work. People get pretty excited when they are able to get more for less and our society strives to give it to them.

While there has not been an infomercial on the subject, farmers from Ohio and around the nation provided more corn for consumers than ever before and they did it on less land than in recent years. The latest USDA figures for the 2009 corn crop show that even with wet, soggy conditions and a delayed harvest, Ohio and U.S. farmers broke corn yield records. The USDA 2009 Crop Summary Report estimates that the average corn yield in Ohio was 174 bushels per acre last year and the total state corn production was 30 percent above the 2008 total. Total acreage for corn in Ohio was 3.35 million acres, which is down from 3.85 million acres in 2008.

“When you look at the total number of acres in Ohio used for corn, it’s clear that farmers are able to do more with less,” said Dwayne Siekman, Ohio Corn Growers Association executive director. “American farmers can grow five times more corn on 20 percent less land than they did in the 1930s, emphasizing that modern farming techniques are essential for a growing demand in the world today.”

U.S. corn production set a new record in 2009 on 7 million fewer acres than were required to produce the previous record in 2007. National corn production is 13.2 billion bushels, 1 percent above the previous record of 13 billion bushels set in 2007, and 9 percent higher than 2008. Average corn yields reached an all-time high in 2009 at 165.2 bushels per acre, eclipsing the previous record of 160.3 bushels per acre set in 2004.

The U.S. soybean crop was also a new record in 2009. Soybean production totaled 3.36 billion bushels, up 13 percent from 2008 and up 5 percent from the previous record set in 2006. The average yield per acre was 44 bushels, up .9 bushels from the previous record set in 2005. Farmers nationwide planted a total of 77.5 million soybean acres and harvested 76.4 million acres in 2009, both up 2 percent from the previous record set last year.

Ohio’s average soybean yield for 2009 was estimated at 49 bushels per acre, up 1 bushel from the November forecast. Total Ohio soybean production is 222 million bushels, up 38 percent from 2008.

With farmers across the nation producing a bumper crop, there are ample supplies of corn and soybeans to supply demand for food, feed and fuel for the future. And, with tools like biotechnology, improving equipment and continued genetic advances in the world’s staple crops, farmers once again proved that they could meet the demands of a growing world.

“The unparalleled productivity of America’s farmers continues to amaze even the most skeptical of critics,” said Bob Dinneen, Renewable Fuels Association president. “Despite unfavorable weather conditions from start to finish, farmers produced considerably more corn than the food, feed and fuel markets are demanding. Such gains in productivity undermine any claims that U.S. biofuel production will require new lands in other nations to come into production. There can be no question that American farmers have both the capability and the can-do attitude to feed the world while simultaneously helping reduce our nation’s reliance on imported oil.”

The news of the large crops from 2009 sent market prices plummeting for corn and soybeans, much like those drastic price-cuts in the infomercials. There is no doubt that U.S. agriculture consistently provides more with less, making the productivity of U.S. farmers more than a just great deal for the consumers of the world -- it’s Craaaazzyyyy!