Agricultural impacts of increased alcohol industry demand for corn: the case of Ohio

Abstract

A mathematical programming model was used to forecast the impacts on Ohio's agricultural sector of a moderate increase in alcohol industry demand for corn. Because converting corn into ethanol yields byproduct feeds that can substitute for soybean meal and other commodities, most of the alcohol industry's demand for corn can be satisfied by switching land from the production of soybeans to the production of corn. For this reason, projected levels of ethanol production do not greatly affect crop or livestock prices. This finding is likely to hold for other corn-growing areas in North America.