Sorghum plantings hit a low of 5.4 million acres in 2010 and have rebounded somewhat to 7.5 million acres this year. That’s one-fifth of the peak 27 million acres planted in 1957 that yielded 1.12 billion bushels, says economist Dave Widmar at the Agricultural Economics Insights blog. Sorghum gets good press as a water-thrifty crop, he writes, “But a variety of factors – including improved corn genetics – shifted acres away from sorghum.”
For policy-makers, the question is whether sorghum is a crop in long-term decline or one in renaissance.
The sorghum belt is in the central and southern Plains; Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma are the major states. Corn yields are higher than sorghum in those states. USDA forecasts slightly higher farm-gate prices for corn than sorghum. Kansas has the largest sorghum plantings of any state but has more corn than sorghum.