Ethanol provides a vital value-added market for corn and other commodities, providing an economic boost to rural America.  Demand created by ethanol production increases the price a farmer receives for grain. 

FACT: Tremendous increases in the productivity of U.S. farmers have ensured ample supplies of grain are available for domestic and international use as food, feed and fuel.  In 1974 U.S. farmers yielded 71.9 bushels of corn per acre, compared with 153.9 in 2008.  One-third of every bushel of grain processed into ethanol is enhanced and returned to the animal feed market in the form of distillers grains, corn gluten feed or corn gluten meal.

FACT: Ethanol production utilized the starch in 3.2 billion bushels of corn in 2008 to produce nearly 27 million tons of high quality livestock feed and 9 billion gallons of ethanol.  Feed produced includes 23 million metric tons of distillers grains, 3 million metric tons of corn gluten feed, and 600,000 metric tons of corn gluten meal.  To put this volume in context, this amount of feed is roughly equivalent to the combined annual amount of total feed consumed by cattle on feed in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado - the nation's four largest fed cattle states.

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FACT: By increasing the demand for corn, and thus raising corn prices, ethanol helps to lower federal farm program costs.

In a January 2007 statement, the USDA Chief Economist stated that farm program payments were expected to be reduced by some $6 billion due to the higher value of a bushel of corn.

FACT: A modern dry-mill ethanol refinery produces approximately 2.8 gallons of ethanol and 17 pounds of highly valuable feed coproducts called distillers grains from one bushel of corn.

FACT: Ethanol production does not reduce the amount of food available for human consumption.

Ethanol is produced from field corn fed to livestock, not sweet corn fed to humans. Importantly, ethanol production utilizes only the starch portion of the corn kernel, which is abundant and of low value. The remaining vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber are sold as high-value livestock feed.

An increasing amount of ethanol is produced from nontraditional feedstocks such as waste products from the beverage, food and forestry industries. In the very near future we will also produce ethanol from agricultural residues such as rice straw, sugar cane bagasse and corn stover, municipal solid waste, and energy crops such as switchgrass. Click here for more information.