Corn & The Environment

Corn and Canada

Corn is Canada's third largest grain crop (after wheat and barley) and the most important one in eastern Canada - with an annual Canadian production of approximately seven million tonnes of grain, produced on about one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land. About 200,000 hectares of corn are also grown for harvest as forage (whole-plant silage). About 70% of Canadian corn is grown in Ontario.

Because of its North and Central American origin, corn is unique among Canadian grain crops, having been grown as a farm crop in Canada for more than 800 years. With the exception of wild rice, all other Canadian grain crops are transplants from the "Old World."

Archeological evidence of corn's prehistoric importance exists in several provinces of Canada. The Lake Crawford site, near Campbellville, Ontario is a well-restored example. Corn has been grown as a cultivated crop in other areas of North America for at least 7000 years.

Corn produced in Canada is used as livestock feed and to produce a wealth of food and industrial products. ( See A zillion uses for corn.) Corn is used in the manufacture of about 25% of the 10,000 products found in a modern supermarket, and in a wide range of other products such as paper and cardboard, automobiles, and clothing.

In addition, corn is now being used for the manufacture of many new products such as absorbants (in diapers and sanitary napkins, for example), non-petroleum-based "plastics," and fuel ethanol (ethyl alcohol) - the latter being an octane-rich, renewable, environmentally superior automotive fuel.

Scientists are discovering that virtually anything made from petroleum can also be made from corn.