The Ethanolization of Agriculture and the Roles of Agricultural Economists

Abstract

First, please permit me the latitude to use a bit of poetic license in coining the term, “ethanolization,” which attempts to describe the upheaval and chaos witnessed across the agricultural sector attributed to the booming corn-based ethanol industry. Ethanolization has focused its impact on agriculture and, in particular, the U.S. agricultural sector as a combination of market-induced and policy-induced factors have created a “perfect storm” that is causing dramatic shocks to virtually every crop and livestock producer and agribusiness. Coining the term ethanolization also borrows from past eras in agriculture described as the “mechanization” of agriculture in the 1940s and 1950s and the “industrialization” of agriculture in the 1990s. Mechanization described a period when widespread adoption of farm machinery occurred across the United States. Then, industrialization, accredited to a body of writings by Draben-stott and Barkema, portrayed a “quiet revolution” of ever-increasing size and specialization of U.S. farms, ranches, and agribusinesses. Now, ethanolization attempts to characterize a similar revolution that is affecting essentially every facet of American agriculture.