Can Corn Continue to Reign for the Next 250? With the right direction, yes.
America celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. And if we’ve learned anything in the last 250 years, it’s that America is really good at growing corn.
The headlines don’t lie. America produced a massive corn crop in 2025: a record 17 billion bushels of corn on 98.8 million acres. That’s the most corn acreage we’ve seen since the 1930s. Plus, this year U.S. corn growers produced more than 7 times the amount of corn they were growing in the 20s.
Corn remains a major source of energy in the United States, fulfilling roles as your protein’s protein in livestock feed and fueling our decreased dependence on petroleum in our liquid fuel markets.
Yet, even with corn’s great qualities, U.S. corn is facing headwinds. And, for corn growers to maintain their success for the next 250 years – we need to navigate toward new opportunities.
Positioning America’s Crop for America’s Future
The old adage of not putting your eggs all in one basket still rings true. Commodities are not immune from allowing singular markets to grow to a point of influence where threats of losing them can send major shock waves through the system.
Today’s ethanol market represents approximately 34% of U.S. corn demand. Ethanol is a huge success story as an industry that has been built for U.S. corn farmers by U.S. corn farmers. But, we can’t avoid the challenges facing on-road fuel.
At NCGA, we are thinking long-term, supporting our existing ethanol markets while also exploring what the future holds outside ethanol’s use as just an on-road fuel.
Moving from Liquid Fuel to a Raw Material
The pivot is not a huge shift overall; it’s a very important nuance grounded in opportunity. Can we simultaneously position ethanol for sustainable aviation fuel and marine use, while also marketing it as a raw material and entering more markets to raise corn farmer profitability? The answer is yes.
Globally, both private and public sector discussions around the bioeconomy and circular economies continue to grow.
A bioeconomy is an economy that uses renewable resources to produce food, energy and industrial goods; while a circular economy is a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated.
They are both plant-based vs. fossil-based opportunities.
In these discussions, 50 of the most progressive countries in the world have made commitments to lean-in on renewable resources. Private companies have taken on commitments to make measurable changes.
From plastic water bottles and active wear to soaps and lubricants, petroleum is being used in our everyday lives where corn could play a role. Corn has already proven itself as a petroleum replacement in liquid fuel, and now we prove ourselves in raw materials.
Tapping into just 10% of the plastics market would add 15 billion bushels of corn demand.
The opportunity is ours for the taking, and NCGA is leaning in, pursuing opportunities for new corn demand in unexpected places. We may never get another market like on-road ethanol again. But, with the work underway now, corn can still be successful for the next 250 years.
Now, what’s more American than supporting America’s Crop for America’s Future?
