AgNewsWire provides some great facts from a Thursday teleconference with reporters and Corn Farmers Coalition Director Mark Lambert and Ross Korves, economic-policy analyst and expert on farm and trade policy for the research firm ProExporter Network:

“It’s a little known fact that we are growing five times as much corn as our grandfathers did in the 1930s on 20 percent less land,” said CFC during with reporters.

Facts like these are vital as the issue of indirect land use gains traction in ethanol policy decisions on the state and federal levels, according to Ross Korves, economic-policy analyst and expert on farm and trade policy for the research firm ProExporter Network. “As corn farmers get more productive, so does corn’s environmental impact abate,” said Korves. “More productivity per acre means we produce more corn on the same acres. There is no land use effect because we are simply not using more land.”

Click here to read the article and listen to the CFC teleconference.