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There are more than 3,500 different uses for corn products
and more are being found each day. These range from aspirin
to shaving cream, from latex paint to disposable diapers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture breaks Corn Usage
into three major categories:
- Feed/Residual (45.9% of total U.S. corn usage in 2007-08)
- Food/Seed/Industrial (35.2%)
- Export (18.9%)
Here are the products that make up the Food, Seed,
Industrial category, along with the percentage of total
corn usage that they represent:
| Category |
Percentage of Total
U.S. Corn Usage, 2007-08 |
| Ethanol |
24.7% |
| High Fructose Corn Syrup |
3.9% |
| Starch |
2.1% |
| Sweeteners |
1.8% |
| Cereal/Other |
1.5% |
| Alcohol |
1.0% |
| Seed |
0.2% |
For Nebraska corn producers, 22% of the
corn they grow is fed directly to livestock here in Nebraska. Ethanol, along with other industrial uses,
represents over 43 percent of Nebraska corn usage. About 20 percent of corn produced in Nebraska is exported out of state, but remains in the U.S. Foreign exports
of Nebraska corn, account for about 6 percent of
Nebraska corn usage.
Helping to find new uses for corn is one of the missions
of the Nebraska Corn Board. Two fairly recent success stories
are ethanol production and bioplastics. Distillers
grains, a co-product of ethanol production, have become
an important and significant feed ingredient for Nebraska livestock. Bioplastics
are plastics made from cornstarch. |
