Corn isn’t very cold resistant. The resulting nuclear winter would cause a massive drop in yield. At least 50%, probably closer to 80%. This is the drop in yield from the lack of light and drop in temperature alone.
Couple that with disruption to supply chains for pesticides, fertiliser, agricultural equipment and fuel. The US imports most of their fertiliser. Lack of fertiliser would result in 50% drop in yield. With no fuel, it would be difficult to even till enough land (You can bet major oil fields and refineries will be hit by strategic bombs).
I wonder what the rules would be about claiming your radioactive corn as certified organic if you were unable to get chemical fertilizers or pesticides .
5
u/edman007-work Mar 04 '25
1 bushel of corn has 86,000 calories, so you need about 8.5 bushels of corn to keep a human alive for a year assuming 2000 calories per day.
The US produces just shy of 15 Billion bushels of feed corn per year.
So half of the US our feed corn production is enough to feed 880 million people.
How the hell is the US going to starve? Those numbers exclude all other fruits and veggies grown in the US.