SIDNEY, Mich. — The future is bright for Michigan’s agriculture industry. Michigan Agri-Business Assoc. President Jim Byrum recently told a group of Montcalm County farmers that “business is good,” and they can expect it to get even better if the industry continues to grow in accordance with trends.

Byrum said the state’s corn yields have risen from 81 bushels per acre in 1970 to 153 bushels in 2010 on non-irrigated land. Plus, Michigan set record yields in 2011, despite the fact that about half of the state’s crop was planted 45 days later than in 2010 because of extremely wet spring weather.

He predicts corn yields will grow to 250 bushels per acre by 2025. “This will mean an extra quarter of a billion bushels of corn,” Byrum said. “That’s half of our total corn production in 2010.

“Will it actually get that high? I don’t know, but there’s absolutely going to be more acres of corn produced in Michigan.”

Byrum expects use of some land to shift with changes in the commodity markets, and one area feeling the pressure is specialty crop production. He said with labor issues in fruit and vegetable crops, some orchard land is being cleared and put back into row crop production.

“We’re looking at some of these specialty crops as pressure areas and perhaps moving back into commodity crop production – corn, soybeans or wheat,” he said. “The challenge is that every one of these crops has to compete dollar-wise.

“We’re going to see some real interesting things happen if all of this come to pass and we see those yields jump.”

Global warming, Byrum said, is at least partly responsible for increased yields, in addition to technological advances in equipment and seed genetics. On the heels of one of the mildest winters in history, Michigan experienced record-high temperatures during the first three weeks of March, topping out in the mid- to high 80s.

The month ended with a “cooldown,” which dropped daytime temperatures back in the 60-degree range – temperatures weather forecasters said were about 15 degrees above average for this time of year.

Byrum said these warmer-than-usual spring temperatures had “farmers scratching the dirt, wanting to get out and play farm and start planting something.” The warming trend, he said, also is impacting growth of crops further north in the state’s Lower Peninsula.

Decades ago, he said farmers in areas such as Falmouth and McBain tended to have a lot of land in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) due to short growing seasons, which made it difficult to produce a crop.

“Thirty-some years ago, they grew corn there, but they grew it for silage,” he said. “Now, we’re looking at yields of grain corn up there at 170 bushels per acre on non-irrigated land.

“We’re seeing climate changes and heat units going further north and crop genetics advancing pretty quickly. Now we’re seeing a new phenomenon in production – how to get enough inputs further north to produce the crops.”

With world demands increasing for beef, pork, poultry and other protein sources, Byrum said he expects trends, such as taking northern Michigan land out of CRP and putting it back into production, will continue.

“Commodity consumption is up around the world,” he said. “The rest of the world likes pork, beef, broilers and all sorts of things that we grow here.”

Plus, he said, many field grains grown in Michigan and other states are being shipped overseas to feed livestock as the world’s diet changes. 

“As the world develops, people are changing from a starch-based diet to a protein-based diet. They’re eating beef, pork and poultry,” he said. “We’re seeing tremendous demand in those parts of the world.”

Byrum said experts predict that by 2020 there will be 350 million more middle-class families around the world, which will continue to push demand for commodities.