A TALE OF TWO CORNS
When you’re driving down a highway in the country and see acre after acre of corn, don’t jump put and grab an ear for some impromptu corn on the cob. There are two corns in the United States, and field corn is by far the most common, grown on 99 percent of all corn acres. While a small portion is processed for use as corn cereal, corn starch, corn oil and corn syrup for human consumption, it is primarily used for livestock feed, ethanol production and other manufactured goods. It’s considered a grain. Sweet corn is what people purchase fresh, frozen or canned for eating. It’s consumed as a vegetable. Unlike field corn, which is harvested when the kernels are dry and fully mature, sweet corn is picked when immature.
Field Corn
• 89 million planted acres
• 14.4 billion bushels produced
•Crop Value: $51.8 billion
Sweet Corn
•494,600 planted acres
•146 million bushel equivalents
•Crop Value: $656 million
What do some of the words mean?
• A bushel of corn is 56 pounds, about the weight of a large bag of dog food.
• An acre is about the area of a football field.
How Field Corn Is Used
In 2018, corn farmers grew 14.4 billion bushels of field corn. The total corn supply, including the corn carried over from 2018, is 16.6 billion bushels.
33% of the field corn supply in the United States (5.2 billion bushels) is used as feed for livestock such as beef, pork or poultry.
26% (4.3 billion bushels) is used directly for ethanol production. This excludes the corn that goes into ethanol plants and becomes distillers grains, the equivalent of 1.2 billion bushels of corn for livestock feed, 7%of the total corn supply.
9% of the corn (1.6 billion bushels) goes to other food, seed and industrial uses. Field corn is a source of high fructose corn syrup, corn cereal, corn starch, corn oil and corn syrup. Hundreds of other products are also derived from corn, such as some fabrics and packaging.
11% (1.9 billion bushels) is exported to other countries. The top five countries to which the United States exports corn are Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Colombia and Peru.
In addition, about 13% of the total corn supply (currently 2.5 billion bushels) is projected to be carried over as a surplus for the next year.
