Chip Taylor

Big ol' pile o' corn

This year's corn crop is second only to last year's corn crop. But why?

Government incentives to produce flat-out have also helped make the large corn harvests possible. Farmers are hardly shy about exploiting the government safety net provided by guaranteed loan-deficiency payments. "Everybody leans on the L.D.P.'s as much as they can," said Ash Kading, a farmer in western Iowa who was harvesting his last few rows of corn late last week. "It is like opening up the federal Treasury. There were quite a few people this year that wish corn prices would go to zero because they would have a bigger L.D.P."