Food AND Fuel
Corn, Ethanol, Food, and World Supplies
- Ethanol’s impact on the corn supply is almost universally overstated
- Those critical of the ethanol industry inaccurately proclaim that 40% of the corn supply goes to the U.S. ethanol industry
- Considering the fact that making ethanol doesn’t use the part of the corn kernel that’s good for livestock feed, the U.S. ethanol industry uses only 23% of the U.S. corn supply.
- 77% of the U.S. corn supply goes to the feed and food markets
- Corn is traded on the world market and overall, the U.S. ethanol industry uses only 3% of the world’s grains, and none of its food grains like rice or wheat.
The perception that we are taking food from the mouths of the hungry and directing it to fuel production is a myth. The corn that we are using to produce ethanol is NOT the corn that you feed your family from the freezer, a can, or straight off the cob. Field corn, or dent corn, is a completely different crop from the sweet corn that you eat. Please read more about these two types of corn here.
Second, the idea that field corn must be diverted from other uses in order to make ethanol is false. American corn farmers grow more corn than we use and yields are continuing to increase. What corn farmers and ethanol manufacturers are proposing is that we take this extra field corn (and the extra field corn just keeps growing as yields increase!) and make ethanol from it instead of not using it. This is a win-win for farmers and consumers alike!
A result of this idea that corn is being diverted from American plates to American cars is the perception that ethanol is causing food prices to increase. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, farmers are only getting 11.6 cents out of every dollar spent on food. A much more accurate cause for the increasing price of food is the increasing cost of petroleum, as transportation costs figure in to nearly every aspect of food production.
If you’d like more information on this issue, please investigate the following fact sheets and links.
Ethanol and Food Prices, by the numbers