Cover Bonus: Get Your Facts Straight
Here are 10 eye-opening facts most consumers would be surprised to learn
Jacqui Fatka
Published: Feb 8, 2010
1. Farmers grow five times as much corn as in the 1930s on 20% less land.
2. Reduced tillage and other farm management practices have reduced soil erosion 43% in 20 years.
3. Farmers produce 70% more corn per pound of fertilizer than as recently as the 1970s.
4. Only 19 cents of our food dollar goes to farmers, and less than a nickel goes to corn farmers.
5. If corn prices were rising as fast as oil, a bushel would sell for $13.50 today instead of around $3.50.
6. By the end of 2008, the amount of ethanol produced domestically in a month nearly equaled the amount of gasoline refined from the oil imported from Saudi Arabia.
7. Half of the U.S. corn crop goes to feed cattle, pigs and poultry, a quarter goes to ethanol and 20% is exported. The rest goes to make food ingredients, chemicals, fabrics and plastic.
8. One in every five rows of corn is exported.
9. Individuals or families own 82% of corn farms; another 6% are family-held corporations.
10. Increased ethanol production will add more than $1.7 trillion to the economy from 2008 to 2022.
Source: Corn Fact Book, published by the Corn Farmers Coalition.
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Tagged: ethanol, farm, fertilizer, Bushel, corn crop
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