Why Corn is Important

Corn has food, seed, and industrial uses. It is a major component of livestock feed. Feed use, a derived demand, is closely related to the number of animals, that is; cattle, hogs, and poultry, that are fed corn. The amount of corn used for feed also depends on the crop's supply and price, the amount of supplemental ingredients used in feed rations, and the supplies and prices of competing ingredients. As ethanol production increases, the supply of ethanol coproducts also increases. Both the dry-milling and wet-milling methods of producing ethanol generate a variety of economically valuable coproducts, the most prominent of which are distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS), which can be used as a feed ingredient for livestock. Each 56-pound bushel of corn used in dry-mill ethanol production generates about 17.4 pounds of DDGS. In the United States, feed for both dairy and beef has been the primary use of DDGS, but increasingly larger quantities of DDGS are making their way into the feed rations of hogs and poultry.