What’s even better is that 45% of the production is for ethanol. Almost all of this is used for blending with gasoline in vehicles. A massive transition toward electric vehicles and public transit would eliminate the need for this. So 45% of the land used for corn production is not needed.
Irrigating corn improves its yield by up to 70% in many regions of the corn belt. Investment into irrigations systems could decrease the land area needed for raising corn by another 50-60%.
Bottom line: We really don’t need to farm 60 million or so acres in corn we currently do in the U.S out of the 80-90 million averages.
![Iowa [OC]](https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/1688407f-5a7e-456c-a652-8d0ba961102c.webp){kind=link}
What’s even better is that 45% of the production is for ethanol. Almost all of this is used for blending with gasoline in vehicles. A massive transition toward electric vehicles and public transit would eliminate the need for this. So 45% of the land used for corn production is not needed.
Irrigating corn improves its yield by up to 70% in many regions of the corn belt. Investment into irrigations systems could decrease the land area needed for raising corn by another 50-60%.
Bottom line: We really don’t need to farm 60 million or so acres in corn we currently do in the U.S out of the 80-90 million averages.