Biotech Updates

Impact of Corn-Based Ethanol and Biotech Crops

May 25, 2007

Supporting the level of production to sustain corn-based ethanol production would require 95.6 million acres of corn to be planted. This would mean additional corn acres from reduced soybean acreage. In “The long term impact of corn-based ethanol of the grain, oilseed, and livestock sectors with implications for biotech crops”, Amani Elobeid and colleagues of the Iowa State University add that the demand for biotech corn varieties to sustain continuous production would increase dramatically, as well as the demand for soybean and wheat that can be grown in marginal areas.

The authors estimated that under the current ethanol tax policy, and if the prices of crude oil, natural gas and distillers grains stay at current levels, the break even corn price is $4.05 per bushel. At this price, corn based ethanol production would reach 31.5 billion gallons per year.

Read more on this report and other papers at http://agbioforum.org.