Food and Fuel: Meeting Global Demand

As the world looks to meet increasing energy demand with cleaner, renewable energy sources, ADM looks to lead the way.

As the global leader in BioEnergy, ADM is working to provide useful energy products, primarily transportation fuels, made from renewable, sustainable feedstocks rather than from petroleum.

For nearly three decades, ADM has led the development and production of ethanol — a renewable fuel made from the starch in crops like corn and sugar cane that is blended with gasoline to reduce emissions and extend petroleum supplies. We are the world’s largest producer of ethanol. We are also one of the world’s largest producers of biodiesel, which is made from oilseeds like soybeans and rapeseed and is blended with petroleum-based diesel fuel.

Today, most ethanol and biodiesel is produced from crops that have historically been used as ingredients in food and animal feed. As biofuels such as these become an increasing part of the transportation energy mix, some people have raised concerns that growing demand for food and growing demand for biofuels may combine to create a shortage of crops.

At ADM, we believe that market forces and technological advances will ensure sufficient crop supplies to meet both food and fuel demands.

As we consider the twin goals of more fuel and more food, it is important to understand that, today, ethanol made from corn and biodiesel from oilseeds are creating food for animals. ADM makes ethanol in two types of mills, wet corn mills and dry corn mills. In both, ethanol is produced by fermenting the starch in the corn kernel. In a dry mill, the corn kernel is separated into ethanol and a high-protein animal feed ingredient called dried distillers’ grain (DDGs).

In a wet corn mill, the kernel is separated into germ, fiber, wet gluten and starch. The germ yields corn oil; the fiber becomes livestock feed; and the wet gluten becomes poultry feed. The remaining starch is fermented into ethanol.

And when we make biodiesel from oilseeds, we are left with other protein-rich animal feed ingredients. So, while some food crops may be processed to produce biofuels, those same crops always yield food.

ADM is working to ensure that the co-products of biofuels production meet the needs of our customers in animal production. Cattle, pork and poultry all require different nutrients, and ADM is committed to turning biofuels co-products into animal feeds and feed ingredients that meet those specific demands.

Beyond the food and fuel produced from today’s crops, crop supplies themselves are increasing, as farming techniques and technologies evolve. New types of seeds, GPS-guided tractors, and other changes are bringing about impressive increases in farmers’ yields (the amount of crops they can plant and harvest in a given acre). For example, in 1990, U.S. farmers achieved an average of 118.5 bushels of corn per acre, and in 2006 they achieved 149.1 bushels per acre – an increase of more than 25 percent¹. Further improvements in crop science and farming technology will continue to offer increased yields to meet market demand. In fact, the rate of yield improvement is increasing from historical levels. So, supplies of crops will increase as farmers plant more acres and technology allows them to harvest more crops from each acre.

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