The Ethanol Decade: An Expansion of U.S. Corn Production, 2000-09
The recent 9-billion-gallon increase in corn-based ethanol production, which resultedfrom a combination of rising gasoline prices and a suite of Federal bioenergy policies,provides evidence of how farmers altered their land-use decisions in response toincreased demand for corn. As some forecasts had suggested, corn acreage increasedmostly on farms that previously specialized in soybeans. Other farms, however, offsetthis shift by expanding soybean production.