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The Corn Supremacy
By Mr Ethanol | October 25, 2007
Grist Magazine:
The productivity of U.S. corn farmers should inspire awe.
According to the U.S. Grains Council, the U.S. produces about 44 percent of the globe’s corn crop — that’s more than China, the European Union, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico combined. Iowa alone, which produces a sixth of U.S. corn, produces about as much as the European Union.
Corn underpins our industrial food system, showing up in a dizzying array of processed foods and serving as the main feed for poultry, dairy, meat, and egg production. Even given all of those uses, there was still enough corn in 2006 to devote a fifth of the harvest to exports, and nearly as much to ethanol.
To create that breathtaking bounty, however, corn makes extraordinary demands on U.S. farm resources. It covers fully a fifth of U.S. cropland, far more than any other crop. It draws more subsidies than any other crop, too. According to the Environmental Working Group, the U.S. government paid corn farmers $51.2 billion between 1995 and 2005 — more than the outlays for the next two most-subsidized crops combined (cotton and wheat) and nearly three times more than the amount spent on the Conservation Reserve Program over the same period…
Topics: Agriculture, Energy, Industry |
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