Corn farming is an important economic contributor in the U.S., not only to growers and rural communities but across 506 industry sectors in all 50 states.
That’s according to the new “Study of the Economic Value of Corn Farming in the United States for 2024,” a report released by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) on Monday.
Corn farming for grain generated an estimated $123 billion in total economic output in 2024, with an estimated contribution of $50 billion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), notes author, Krista Swanson, chief economist for the NCGA.
She writes that corn farming supported over 440,000 jobs and provided $29 billion in wages, strengthening communities in rural America and across the entire nation last year alone.
The report comes as corn prices have dropped and corn growers face many challenges, including higher input costs, tariffs and some trade barriers. NCGA leaders say the report should serve as a reminder to policymakers that corn grower contributions are important.
Here’s a look at the economic benefits corn makes in every U.S. state:
The total benefits of corn farming is a sum of the direct, indirect and induced effects, Swanson says.
“Direct effects are valued based on activities happening at the corn farm level. Indirect effects are valued based on activities up the corn farming supply chain, such as input providers,” she says. “Induced effects are valued based on activities filtered back into the economy by household spending of corn farmers and employees up the corn supply chain.”
Direct Effects
In 2024, corn farmers in the United States grew 14.9 billion bushels of corn for grain valued at $64.7 billion, representing the direct output or industry production value. Corn farming provides direct labor wage and benefit equivalents of $9.9 billion.
Corn farming directly contributes an estimated $15.6 billion in value added output, a measure of contribution to the nation’s GDP. To put that into perspective, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates the output of all of America’s farms contributed a total $199.1 billion, or about 0.7% of U.S. GDP, in 2024.5 Corn farming alone directly made up 8% of the total farm-level contribution to GDP.
Indirect Effects
Swanson writes that there are firms in 489 different industry sectors across all 50 states with indirect linkages to corn farming. These firms generated an estimated $36.1 billion in output production value and contributed an estimated $20.7 billion to GDP in 2024. Indirect labor and wage benefits totaled $11.4 billion.
Your next read: AgReliant Genetics Announces Planned Acquisition by Argentinian Firm, GDM
