Canned, frozen corn industry struggling across US growing regions

For those whose primary experience with corn is the butter-drenched cob variety, it might come as a surprise that other forms of sweet corn are in trouble. A new University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign analysis shows sweet corn production for frozen and canned products has been steadily shrinking in the U.S. over the past 27 years, particularly in rainfed portions of the Midwest. "The processing sweet corn industry [corn grown for canned and frozen products] was thriving in the U.S. throughout the 20th century. This type of production, as opposed to fresh-market corn on the cob, makes up the majority of sweet corn acres in the U.S. To see such success in a crop and then signs of struggle in recent decades is a disturbing trend," said senior study author Marty Williams, USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) ecologist and affiliate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, part of the College of ...