Corn. It is everything. Everywhere we look we are destined to face something with corn. Five years ago, ethanol was on the rise in rural America. And what is ethanol? Corn.
Hundreds of ethanol plants in the Corn Belt of America opened due to government subsidies and mandates. This brought in jobs and business to small towns and corn farmers. However, "those days of promise and prosperity are vanishing." But I thought we had an abundance of corn?! Corn for all?! That is not quite the case. The drought last year left farmers with little to no corn. In fact, Don Mutter, who farms near an ethanol plant in Missouri, "said he produced about 25,000 bushels of corn last year, just 5.5 percent of his usual yield." And with this, many issues arise. Ethanol plants are strategicically placed in areas surrounded by farms so transportation costs would be low, but as in the case of one plant "without corn nearby to purchase, the plant had to spend extra to haul it in from elsewhere." Like many other ethanol manufacturers, it had been operating at a loss for months and finally ended operations in January.
So what has happened to all of the ethanol plants? Is it nature to blame or our reliance on corn in so many industries? I will leave you with these facts: "nearly 10 percent of the nation's ethanol plants have stopped production over the past year, in part because the drought that has ravaged much of the nation's crops pushed commodity prices so high that ethanol has become too expensive to produce." And
"if we are what we eat, Americans are corn."
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