Producing a Crop That Feeds and Fuels the World

How many times a day does the average American consumer use a product derived from corn? You may fill your car up with ethanol blended fuel. That soda at lunch – sweetened with a corn sweetener. Maybe you have a pillow or comforter made from corn fiber. And the pot roast for dinner – most likely corn-fed beef.

For many, the first use of corn that comes to mind is a foodstuff– cornflakes, chips and other products. In actuality, human consumption is just a small percentage of overall corn use.

In the United States, 57 percent of the corn crop is fed to animals, helping livestock producers deliver affordable, high-quality meat products to consumers. The livestock industry is the corn producers’ leading customer. In 2003, beef cattle were fed more than 1.4 billion bushels of corn, while hogs consumed 1.1 billion bushels and poultry another 1.3 billion bushels.

Regardless of market, producers around the world continue to explore value-added opportunities for corn. One of the most successful efforts has been the growth of the ethanol market.

Eleven percent of U.S. corn production goes into ethanol, while another 19 percent or 1.9 billion bushels is exported. The balance of the crop is used for food, seed and industrial uses.

Thousands of products are derived from corn. The emerging bioproducts industry creates new uses for corn and its byproducts. Solvents, cleaners, deicers and plastics are just a handful of the hundreds of renewable, cornbased products we use every day.

Organizations such as NCGA work with state corn organizations, universities and industry partners to find new uses for corn. Corn refining is a prime example of value-added agriculture. Refining separates corn into various components – starch, oil, protein and fiber – and converts it into higher-value products. More than 1.4 billion bushels of corn are refined annually into a wide variety of food, industrial and feed products.