Did you know that only about 1 percent of the corn we grow is eaten as corn?
The rest works its way into our food supply in other ways, such as animal feed or sweetener, or is used for industrial purposes like making fuel for cars.
And did you know that every year farmers are getting more corn from each acre thanks to advances in equipment and biotechnology? Examples: corn that’s bred to be resistant to insects or global positioning systems that guide combines to within inches of where they should plant seeds and place fertilizer.
It’s all part of corn’s story, a story most people think they already know. After all, who hasn’t crunched away on an ear of corn at a picnic or slathered mustard on a corn dog at a county fair?
But most Americans don’t know very much at all about our largest and most important crop – that, for instance, by far most of it goes to feed animals we raise for food, like cattle and pigs; or that we’re making biodegradable plastic from it these days; or that corn is at the base of our food system in so many ways it’s hard to count them all.
You can learn about this and more in this Corn Fact Book. It includes an overview of who is farming the land today, how they are doing so in a socially responsible way while growing productivity and the importance of corn as an economic engine.
Click the icons to download individual chapters.