Argentina is the fourth-largest corn-growing country in the world. The area harvested in 1999 was 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres), and production was 13.2 million tons. Barley is favored as the grain of greatest yield and resistance to disease; types for feed and beer are grown in the pampas areas having soil unfavorable or a climate too rigorous for wheat. Harvests once amounted to 659,000 tons per season in the early 1970s, but in 1999 production was 400,000 tons.