I have been seeing a lot of information from the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the National Corn Growers Association recently on facts about corn and I would like to share some of them with you.
FARM FAMILIES
U.S. farms may be diverse in size and scope, but the USDA reports that the vast majority are family operations.
- 95% of corn farms are family farms
- 90% of corn is grown on family farms
- Family farms manage 84% of all farm acreage
- Family farms represent 78% of all farm sales
KERNELS OF TRUTH
The next facts about corn come from Iowa Corn and they are called “Kernels of Truth”. On their brochure it says, “Corn ingredients are important in many foods, but they are often present in amounts too small to justify price changes at the grocery store. The graph below illustrates how much corn is in many popular items at the grocery store.”
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*Does not include other feed ingredients that may be in the ration. |
On March 14th, the USDA published “A Revised and Expanded Food Dollar Series–A Better Understanding of Our Food Costs.” On the Iowa Corn website it shows that “the farmers share of the food dollar is even less than originally thought. According to the report, just 11.6 cents of every dollar spent on food makes it back to the farmer.”
- 31.5 lbs of starch or
- 33 lbs of sweetener or
- 2.8 gallons of fuel ethanol or
- 22.4 lbs of PLA fiber/polymer
Plus
- 17.5 lbs of distillers dried grains with solubles*
- 13.5 lbs of gluten feed**
- 2.6 lbs of gluten meal** and
- 1.5 lbs of corn oil
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WORLD CORN CONSUMPTION, 2010-2011*
*Marketing Year October 1, 2010-September 30, 2011
CORN USES
- Feed & Distillers Grains = 6.1 bil bu
- Ethanol = 3.7 bil bu
- Other U.S. Uses = 1.4 bil bu
- All Exported = 2.3 bil bu
- Held for Future Use = 0.7 bil bu
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