Cornland · Andreas Paul Photography

Maisfeld entlang einer Landstrasse unter weitem Himmel.

Cornland 003

The story

The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States where corn has, since the 1850s, been the predominant crop, replacing the native tall grasses.

Large-scale farming is necessary to produce agricultural alcohol and this requires substantial amounts of cultivated land. A 2006 study by University of Minnesota researchers found that if all corn grown in the U.S. were used to make ethanol, it would displace 12% of U.S. gasoline consumption at the time.

Ethanol fuel is ethanol (ethyl alcohol), the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. World ethanol production for transport fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007, from 17 billion to more than 52 billion litres; in 2024 it reached a record of about 118 billion litres (31.1 billion gallons), more than half of it produced in the United States.

Most cars on the road in the U.S. can run on blends of up to 10% ethanol, and the use of 10% ethanol gasoline is mandated in some U.S. states and cities. In 2024 the national average blend rate was about 10.4%, and the EPA has approved E15 for all cars and light trucks built in the past 25 years.

However, there has been considerable debate about how useful bioethanol will be in replacing gasoline. Concerns about its production and use relate to increased food prices, the large amount of arable land required for crops, as well as the energy and pollution balance of the whole cycle of ethanol production, especially from corn.

Today more than 4,200 public stations in 43 U.S. states offer E85, a blend of 51% to 83% ethanol — many of them in the Corn Belt.