Recent changes in livestock numbers, the types of livestock raised, and the size and location of livestock-rearing facilities throughout Minnesota and the U.S. are expected to pose severe challenges to a transportation network built for an earlier era. To help government and industry officials anticipate future transportation requirements, we calculated how much of each year’s crop of Minnesota corn and soybeans is fed to livestock, and how much remains to be shipped to other states and countries.
We used published government statistics and typical figures for how much an animal consumes to first calculate the amount of corn and soybeans that were produced and consumed in each county. In all, we did this for 32 classes of livestock, ranging from broiler chickens to dairy cows, from brood sows to replacement ewes. For this article, however, we’ve lumped these 32 classes into just four groups of livestock—namely poultry, swine, beef cows, and dairy cows.
Livestock feed requirements can vary tremendously, depending on the animal’s size and how long it is kept. For example, a broiler chicken, from the day it hatches until it is slaughtered 45 days later, eats about 5.7 lbs of corn and 2 lbs of soybean meal. In contrast, a dairy cow needs 5,824 lbs of corn and 1,700 lbs of soybean meal each year to sustain herself, give birth to a calf, and still produce 15,000 lbs of milk. Cattle also eat substantial amounts of forages such as hay, haylage, and corn silage, but these feeds, typically, are not transported very far. For this reason, we focus only on corn and soybeans here.
Figure 3 shows the estimated consumption of corn for our four livestock groups, and map 1 shows how much corn is consumed by livestock for each county in Minnesota. Livestock in Martin County consume the most corn in the state, followed by (geographically larger) Stearns County. Farmers in both counties feed over 20 million bushels of corn each year to their livestock. In contrast, livestock in 22 counties (primarily in the northern half of the state and in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area) consume less than 1 million bushels per county each year.
Map 2 shows the amounts of corn remaining after local feed requirements are met. Sometimes, a county’s livestock require so much corn that local production cannot meet local needs, and so farmers must import corn. Counties in the first group have an “exportable surplus,” while counties in the second have a “feed deficit.”
Twenty-three northern counties plus Ramsey County have feed deficits. The largest deficit occurs in Becker County, which imports 2.4 million bushels of corn for its livestock. Other counties with high corn imports include Roseau (2.1 million bushels), Todd (2.1), Red Lake (2.0), and Morrison Counties (1.9). Counties that use the smallest percentage of their corn production to feed livestock-—that is, counties that have the highest percentage of exportable surplus—-are Traverse (6 percent), Wilkin (9 percent), Faribault (9 percent), and Chippewa Counties (9 percent).
The map suggests that a significant portion of the Minnesota corn crop is available for further processing or export from the state. Figure 4 shows our estimate of these movements for the 990 million bushel corn crop that Minnesota produced in 1999. Consumption by Minnesota livestock remains the dominant value-added activity in the use of corn, but industrial facilities (principally makers of ethanol and sweeteners) used 133 million bushels, or 14 percent of the crop. In addition, 144 million bushels were transported by rail to ports in the Pacific Northwest for export to Pacific-rim countries, and 200 million bushels were shipped by barge to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Only 40 million bushels of corn were exported by ship from the ports of Duluth and Superior.
Soybeans are always processed before being used, usually at large processing plants where oil and protein meal are produced. As a general rule, one 60-lb bushel of soybeans yields 11 lbs of soy oil and 47.5 lbs of soybean meal. The soybean meal is crushed, formulated into feed, and transported to livestock feeding areas.
Figure 5 shows our estimates of the quantities of soybean meal consumed by each of our four livestock categories. We calculate that Minnesota livestock consume the soybean meal produced from 87 million bushels of soybeans, or 34 percent of the 1999 Minnesota crop. Of the soybean meal eaten by poultry, turkeys eat 78 percent, followed by laying chickens (14 percent) and broiler chickens (8 percent).
Map 3 shows how much soybean meal is consumed by livestock for each county in Minnesota. In 45 counties, livestock consume less than 20,000 tons of soybean meal each year. At the other extreme, livestock in four counties (Stearns, Martin, Kandiyohi, and Morrison) consume anywhere from 80,000 to 156,000 tons of soybean meal, which is equivalent to 3.8 to 6.5 million bushels of soybeans. (Martin is the number one hog-producing county in the state, while Kandiyohi, Stearns, and Morrison are major poultry producers. Stearns and Morrison are also major dairy counties.)
Figure 6 shows the destinations for the 283 million bushels of soybeans produced in Minnesota in 1999. Approximately 100 million bushels were turned into oil and meal—-and most of the meal was fed to livestock in Minnesota (for county totals, see map 3). In addition, 45 million bushels were exported by ship from Duluth-Superior, 65 million bushels were transported by barge down the Mississippi River for export from ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and over 13 million bushels were shipped by rail to the Pacific Northwest for export. The remaining 60 or so million bushels of soybeans went primarily by rail to processors in the U.S. and Mexico.
Work is under way to further refine data on grain and oilseed movements by truck, unit train, and river barge. The combined volume of exportable corn surpluses and of soybean production (all soybeans require at least some non-local shipping) determine the amount of grain and oilseeds that need to be transported to processing plants and/or through export channels. We don’t have room to include it here, but a map of the state showing the “density” of shipping demand (measured in tons of grains and oilseeds per square mile of farms) can help transportation planners identify areas of the state where roads and railroads can be expected to receive the heaviest freight volumes. This map would show the highest demand coming from a band of counties stretching diagonally from Freeborn and Faribault at its southeast corner to Big Stone at its northwest corner. In general, the high demand areas include those counties with the highest exportable corn surplus shown in map 2, and they do not include those counties with high soybean meal consumption shown in map 3.
This article is based on a series of reports we prepared for the Agricultural Transportation Database Consortium, which is led by the Minnesota Grain and Feed Association. We thank the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, and the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station for financial support.
Douglas G. Tiffany is a research fellow and Jerry Fruin is an associate professor. Both are in the Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota.
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