Corn ethanol growth in the USA without adverse foreign land‐use change: defining limits and devising policies

This study addresses the question: ‘How does a 15 billion gallon per year renewable fuel standard (RFS) compare to the capacity of the US corn market to generate necessary input supplies for the ethanol industry?’ The analysis accounts for adjustments in world corn and soybean markets, including corn technology improvements (yield increases) that allow substantial production growth on the existing corn area, and byproduct (DDG) replacement of displaced corn‐feed demand. Our midpoint estimate suggests that increased production on foreign lands only accounts for a small fraction (6%) of the RFS demand expansion. Further, corn yield response to moderate price increases would likely offset much of the foreign production increase. US policies that could sever any remaining link between US ethanol expansion and environmentally sensitive regions of the world feed economy are discussed.