Resource information
The recent 9-billion-gallon increase in corn-based ethanol production, which resultedfrom a combination of rising gasoline prices and a suite of Federal bioenergy policies,provides evidence of how farmers altered their land-use decisions in response toincreased demand for corn. As some forecasts had suggested, corn acreage increasedmostly on farms that previously specialized in soybeans. Other farms, however, offsetthis shift by expanding soybean production. Farm-level data reveal that the simultaneousnet expansion of corn and soybean acreage resulted from a reduction in cotton acreage, a shift from uncultivated hay to cropland, and the expansion of double cropping (consecutively producing two crops of either like or unlike commodities on the same land within the same year).
