Figure 3
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Fuel Ethanol Plant Production Capacity
Among all of these products, ethanol production seems to have impacted a lot in US economy. Various researches have shown that high demand in ethanol in recent years has increased the demand in corn, resulting in a vast majority of US farmland to cultivate corn Figure 4.
Various analysis have shown that US is the world’s largest corn producer and currently exports between 10 and 20 percent of the annual production. The amount of corn used to produce ethanol surpassed the amount used to feed cattle, making ethanol a multibillion dollar company. Figure 3. Studies conducted by US grain council in 2016 states that corn exports added $74.7 billion to us economy. Every dollar in grain and grain products this industry exports, generates an additional $3.23 in business scales across the United States, boosting agriculture and economy. Apart from this, it has increased the US national GDP by 29.8 billion dollars, created 332,787 full time jobs which are directly and indirectly linked to cultivation and manufacturing of corn products. The council also predicts that if the corn business is lost, the US will lose about 47000 jobs and GDP will decrease by 2.8 billion dollars.
Figure 4: U.S. feed grain production, 2017/18 S2.4% 0.3% OATS ONGHUM B0.9% ARLEY C96.4% ORN
Although investors and scientists are investing a lot of resources and time in inventing new uses of corn and in making corn invincible and productive, we cannot quite ignore the ideas and the results of the analysis which acknowledges the popularity of this cash crop but suggests otherwise. Monoculture, excess use of natural resources, degrading soil nutrients to balance the soil enrichment, degrading water quality, and using the farmland to cultivate crops to feed animals rather than humans, and to produce fuel, are among the few.
Jonathan Foley, provides very logical reasons on how monoculture lacks diversity and highlights the vulnerability of corn cultivation towards single possible disaster, economic downturn, pest infestation, and possibility of monoculture failure resulting in increase in food and fuel prices. In short, he highlights his concerns about putting too many eggs in one basket.
Today, the reality is that the increase in ethanol demand has resulted in increase in cultivation of this commodity crop. As a result, corn today is cultivated in more than 90million acres of land and farmers are provided incentives to increase the corn acreage. The research in various new uses of corn and its ability to respond positively to the innovative technology to increase yields in future, holds equal weight in the discussion, as does the argument presented by Jonathan Foley in his article to include diversity in cultivation and reanalyze the corn system sustainable agriculture.
Source: USDA, World Agriculture Outlook Board, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, Updated: November 2017.
Amrita Tandukar E:
amrita.tandukar@adm.com
21 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | January/February 2018
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