Use of corn for ethanol is predicted to exceed use for animal feed for the first time

Ethanol plants are predicted to use 200 million more bushels of corn than the nation's livestock and poultry producers, according the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Crop Production and Supply/Demand report. This is the first time ethanol use estimates are larger than feed estimates, University of Missouri Cooperative Media Group reports for Southwest Farm Press. "That's a first-time-ever type of change," Ron Plain, economist for University of Missouri Extension said. "For forever, feed was the largest single use of corn."

Sustained high corn prices caused many farmers to reduce livestock and poultry numbers to cut costs and get a better price, reducing meat production forecasts for next year, the media group reports. "You have to go back to 1955 to find a smaller amount of corn to be fed to livestock in the U. S. That is going to make things tough for the livestock and poultry industries," Plain said. (Read more)

A new USDA report tracks the expansion of corn production in the last decade and the effect on other crops and land use.