Wrong, Associated Press, New Short Corn Variety Is a Marketing Ploy, Not a Response to Climate Change
By
H. Sterling Burnett
September 27, 2024
The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven’t been increasing, aren’t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.
The AP story, titled, “‘Short corn’ could replace the towering cornfields steamrolled by a changing climate,” the news agency writes:
Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower.
. . .
But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long.
The short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change. (emphasis mine)
https://climaterealism.com/2024/09/wrong-associated-press-new-short-corn-variety-is-a-marketing-ploy-not-a-response-to-climate-change/
