which country grows corn the cheapest from a land cost and wage cost ?

Answer 1

the US we're so industrialized with swaths of land we can squeeze more production than anyone - efficiently

Answer 2

It is a difficult measure.
On a simple basis the price of the corn would equal the cost of the inputs (labor+land(and other inputs)+taxes-subsidies).

Many poor countries subisdize food costs considerably much more than the US. This is to keep the massive numbers of people that have moved to big cities in many third world countries alive. More often however they often force farmers to sell to the corn to the government at set prices.

Therefore the price of corn (and the value of the labor that makes the corn and the land) is very low. In many cases the land cost is "free" as the farmers neither own clear title to the land or are "squatters" on either land owned by the government or someone else. The land cost is not really free in such cases it is just not being paid.

Since many of the farmers in the poor world are not even integrated into the cash economy, and are largely self sufficient producing most of their own food and other needs, the "wages" in such areas are very low, often below the eqivelent of $1 a day.

The net result is that the US may not actually be growing the most inexpensive corn in the world. But the growing is only a portion of the costs.

The US has very efficient infrastructure to gather large quantities of corn, store it and transport it to market efficiently. The additional cost of gathering small quantities of corn from subsistence farmers, transporting the corn to markets and so on, ends up making the US corn among the cheapest in the world when the price of corn delivered to the user is counted. Often the costs of transport and storage are so high in the third world there is little left for the poor farmer selling on the world market price. This reduces the value of his labor and land that is used to grow the corn.

The world (free market) corn price is dominated by the US production, and mainly it is only the US farmers that are getting rich selling corn on the world market. This should suggest that the US system is the most cost efficient, not only producing the cheapest corn but providing profits to the growers.

Australia largely uses the US system and I expect the costs are nearly identical between the two countries.

Answer 3

The United States

Answer 4

The price paid for corn is not based on labor costs or operating costs. It's based on what the commodity market brings. The US is most productive.

Answer 5

With or without considering subsidies to "underpriviledged" nations?