In late February, farmers from across the US will gather in Houston, Texas, to witness the crowning of their champions: the winners of the National Corn Yield Contest. Every year, thousands of participants brush up on the contest’s 17-page rule book and then attempt to plough, plant, and fertilize their way into the record books. Their aim? To squeeze as much corn as possible from each square meter of farmland.
The overall winner in 2023—and in 2021, 2019, and nine times before that—was David Hula, a farmer from Charles City, Virginia. Hula is something like the Michael Phelps of competitive corn yields. He sets records, smashes them, then comes back
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