Ethanol production used less than 5 percent of the nation’s corn in 1990-91, or 333 million bushels, but used as much as 24 percent – 3.1 billion bushels – by 2007-08, a South Dakota State University economist says. SDSU research associate Yonas Hamda’s article, ‘Dependency on the Ethanol Industry, is included in a recent issue of the SDSU Economics Commentator. It’s available online at an SDSU Department of Economics Web site, http://econ.sdstate.edu/Research/Commentator/No503.pdf. Hamda includes some discussion of domestic corn used for ethanol. The figures show that the top five states in ethanol production – Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota and Minnesota currently account for two-thirds of ethanol production capacity – are channeling a substantial share of their corn into ethanol processing. About 60 percent of South Dakota’s corn went into ethanol production by 2007-08, the highest proportion of any state. In Iowa the figure was 50 percent; in Nebraska, 40 percent; and in Minnesota and Illinois, 30 percent. The increasing rate of corn for ethanol use has affected the availability of corn for feed and exports. Research in 2008 by SDSU economists Bashir Qasmi, Yonas Hamda and Scott Fausti suggested the share of corn going […]