Corn Food Vs Fuel

Corn: Food V.S Fuel

Richelle Zweng

Baker Collage

When most people hear the word corn the first thing that comes to mind is food. Not just food for humans but food for livestock and animals as well. Corn is actually a staple in many things we use on a daily basis. The website www.ontariocorn.org is a good source to research the many uses of corn. One interesting fact on this website is that the average grocery store sell around ten thousand items, and of that ten thousand items around twenty-five hundred of those items is made with corn (www.ontariocorn.org). With corn already being used in so many day to day items, using it to fill our gas tanks should not be an option. We need to keep corn as a food source, not deplete it for our excessive use of fuel.

First let's take a look at what it takes to grow a crop of corn. The most obvious thing needed is land, not just any land, land that is suitable to sustain a crop that is somewhat hard to grow. On average the United States produces roughly 10.5 billion bushels of corn per year. The amount of land needed to produce such a large yield is approximately 90.5 million acres (Dow Jones, April, 19, 2007). The united states has a land mass of 2.3 billion acres (www.chacha.com), so 90.5 million may not seem like a lot in comparison, but when you take into account all the other uses the area needs this number is quite high. There are 300 million citizens that live in the United States which require land to build homes, schools, hospitals, businesses, and other infrastructures so this amount of land tied up in the production of corn could someday have to be put to use for other purposes. As the population grows and life spans are lengthened the need for more land will become a very real issue.

Another thing to consider when questioning whether corn based ethanol should be used for a renewable fuel source is the problems that may cause a shortage in the production of corn crops. Corn is somewhat hard to grow, if you have ever tried to grow corn in a garden you are familiar with the struggles of producing good crops. Corn needs an almost perfect environment to grow. One rainy season and crops could be lost, the same holds true if the growing season is too dry. If we are depending on corn for fuel, this could dramatically effect a huge food source for the United States. Corn crops are prone to parasites, funguses, and quickly deplete the soil of minerals so in order to continuously grow corn farmers need to regularly fertilize their soil.

As mentioned earlier the United States produces 10.5 billion bushels of corn early. Right now only twenty percent of that corn is actually used to feed humans. Another twenty-five to thirty percent is used to feed animals and make other daily essentials such as disposable diapers, synthetic rubbers,