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* Farmers grow five times as much corn as in the 1930s on 20% less land.
* Reduced tillage and other farm management practices have reduced soil erosion 43% in 20 years.
* Farmers produce 70% more corn per pound of fertilizer than as recently as the 1970s.
* Less than 1% of the nation's corn crop is sweet corn bought frozen, canned or on the cob at the grocery store; the vast majority is commercial "field corn" used for other purposes.
* The 2008 corn crop was worth $52 billion.
* Only 19 cents of our food dollar goes to farmers, and less than a nickel goes to corn farmers.
* If corn prices were rising as fast as oil, a bushel would sell for $13.50 today instead of around $3.50.
* By the end of 2008, the amount of ethanol produced domestically in a month nearly equaled the amount of gasoline refined from the oil imported from Saudi Arabia.
* Half of the U.S. corn crop goes to feed cattle, pigs and poultry, a quarter goes to ethanol and 20% is exported. The rest goes to make food ingredients, chemicals, fabrics and plastic.
* One in every five rows of corn is exported.
* Individuals or families own 82% of corn farms; another 6% are family-held corporations.
* Increased ethanol production will add more than $1.7 trillion to the economy from 2008 to 2022.
Source: Corn Fact Book, published by the Corn Farmers Coalition.
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