The Economics of Rising Demand for Corn: Reasons Related to Ethanol and Its Uses

Many alterations have been applied to the area that corn is grown in. The main biome that corn is grown would be grasslands. Grasslands are an extremely important biome for producing food, it was shown that approximately 90% of the food produced today contains at least one of the fifteen species that are grown in grasslands. Unfortunately, for there to be enough space for corn to be grown and harvested, native grasses must be cleared, therefore having a devastating impact on the biome. Corn is known to be the most thirsty crop to be grown, taking up almost 7,000 to 8,000 gallons of water, draining countries, that don't receive as much rain, of their groundwater. Another impact on the environment of corn production would be the excessive use of fertilizers, this is due to the little nutrients returned back to the soil. As corn is mainly used for consumption, very little plant

Corn is a versatile crop, and that is why we grow so much of it. However, many people believe that corn should be used as a system and not as American agriculture. Due to this, people think this is the problem with food prices increase and causing hardship problems. I’m here to tell you the facts about corn ethanol is far more greater in negativity and that corn ethanol is being put into bad use.

The United States of America is the world’s largest corn overproducer. With such heavy focus on corn, I would like to draw attention to a measure taken by the United States government, the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996. This act increased the amount of farm land that is meant to be used in the States for growing corn from 60 million acres to a whopping 90 million acres. Such a significant increase cannot go without some kind of effect. Writer, Michael Pollan, in his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, discusses the instability of the US farming industry as well as the negative environmental implications corn has on us. This instability and environmental impact has given rise to movements promoting a return to more

The history of corn can be dated back to the beginning of time, but the use and value of corn had been unnoticed until it was introduce by the Native Americans. Where corn had seemed to be a big part of their everyday life from, being in myths, legends, and for a huge portion of their diet corn was an essential component. "when the Europeans had touched base to the New World during the late fifteenth century, the Native Americans had introduced corn what they had called maize to the Europeans .This crop was then later on grown and adapted from Canada to southern South America very quickly, which then began to form the new basis of the New World civilization" (Leventin & McManhon, 2012). The way corn has been changing and revolutionizing throughout time has been both fascinating and drastic. Rather than conventional corn being grown, it is genetically modified corn that have been dominating today 's crop industry and farming but the question remains as to how the various types of GMO corn has influenced the way it is grown and used and what its ramification are.

Growing up in Nebraska I can tell you that I have ingested my fair amount of corn and corn-based products, I mean we are the Cornhuskers after all. But what is so special about corn? I ask this question because I want to know what is so special about corn and why is it in almost anything and everything we eat. America's agriculture is vast in the many types of plants that are planted and harvested every year, such as soybeans and wheat that are also used as an ingredient in many of our foods that we consume every day. When trying to answer this question I had to do some of my own investigative work, just as Pollan did when finding out all he could find out about corn. I researched the most grown grains in America, since corn is a grain, and to no surprise, it was corn but the second majorly grown crop that we Americans plant was soybeans. From there I

In my opinion, corn is a renewable resource and should be used as a new source of energy.In paragraph 1 on page 1,it states,”Caron is processed to produce different energy products.For example,corn can be used to create ethanol.” this shows an example on about how corn can be a new source of energy. It is grown with solar energy so it is a renewable resource,and there will be plenty to go around for the U.S. and the WORLD!

Corn is not the ideal nutritious food. It wreaks havoc on the animal;s' digestive system and gets turned into sweeteners that makes people obese, aside from giving us an unhealthy diet. In other words, the industrial food chain that American man is sustained on is largely based on corn, whether in its direct form, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose, and the cheapest forms of these are high-fructose corn syrup and ethanol. The former, particularly, through a combination of biological, cultural, and political factors, appears in the cheapest and most common of foods that constitute the American diet. It is the ingredient that results in obesity, and, since it appears in the cheapest products, the ingredients that more poor, than wealthier individuals, consume.

In the early 1990s, the farm economy in the heartland of the United States was weak. Farmers in North Dakota produced hard, amber Durham wheat and exported 75% to Italy for the production of high quality pasta. Prices for raw wheat fluctuated radically, depending on weather and growing conditions. Many farmers were having difficulty meeting payments for the expensive farm machin- ery required for crop production. Small family farms were disappearing and non-farm jobs in the area were scarce. Although consumers were paying record prices for food, many farmers felt that processors, who converted the raw grains into finished products for sale in

The likely impact on food prices in the United States if the supply of oranges were reduced, and the consumption of corn for fuel was to increase, would be to expect an increase in food prices. When events such as a deep freeze happen and the result is a decrease of supply the market will experience an increase in the equilibrium price if all other things remain consistent. If the president called for an increase in ethanol produced from corn, the supply of corn available to provide as food will decrease, and the decrease

First, Michael Pollan explains how corn is been used really “sprouted up” in the year 1947 after

Chapter one of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan follows corn on its journey from acting as the primary crop of the Native Americans all the way to its introduction into the industrial setting. Pollan makes it explicitly clear that corn is in everything. Behind all the chemicals listed in the “ingredients” section on a product, consumers will find corn. Corn even plays a role in our chemical makeup. Because of corn’s ability to intake more carbon than most other plants, it does not have a preference over the carbon isotopes it consumes. By looking at the carbon isotope ratios in humans, we can determine how much corn one has eaten. Pollan states that corn’s variability is what makes it such an important crop. The European settlers

Because of the success of transgenic crops like Bt corn, the usage and availability of GMOs has increased exponentially. The number of GM crops produced in the United States grew from 1.45 hectares in 1996 to over 29 million in 2000. This accounts for about 70% of the total GM crops grown in the world (European Commission 2). Similar patterns have emerged from other agriculture-intensive countries like Canada, Argentina, China, and Brazil. Large percentages of products like soybeans (68%), cotton (50%) and corn (28%) are now

The demand for corn has greatly increased because of its many new found uses but mainly because it has been discovered that corn can be use as an alternate energy source. This great demand for corn has increased many area of farming and production of corn here and other countries such as Mexico and South America. This great demand has lead to an increase in farmers who are willing to cash in on these cash crops and try to earn a few quick dollars because of the great demand for it. In 2007 Corn farmer saw record profits because famer where getting twice as much for corn as they did in previous years. The same trend continued but farmers dealt with so many obstacle such as weather, bugs and lack of

Every day people use products without thinking about the significance of that particular product. Many people do not realize how important these products are and how much one product that is used every day affects the economic status of not only the country but the world. Wheat is used to make a large number of products which include beer and bread. The next few pages of this report will discuss how supply and demand for wheat shifts, how it affects price, and whether or not wheat is a luxury or a necessity will also be analyzed.

This essay will first discuss the advantages of using corn ethanol as the main source of fuel in the future, such as the renewable features of corn itself, and the benefits of using corn ethanol as an additive of gasoline instead of using gasoline alone. However, everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the second part of the essay will discuss some of the weaknesses in applying the fuel into practical usage. For example, corn ethanol currently encounters technical limitations serving itself as a standalone fuel, meaning that corn ethanol can only function by combining itself with a certain amount of gasoline, while gasoline is a kind of fossil fuel. Lastly, this essay will conduct a comparison with other renewable resources in the world, including solar power, other biofuels, and hydrogen fuel.