Global corn consumption 2023/2024, by county

The United States is the leading consumer of corn worldwide. In 2023/2024, the U.S. consumed about 12 billion bushels of corn. The EU consumed about 12.04 billion bushels of corn in that year. 

Corn production in the U.S.

Corn for grain makes up about a 27.5 percent share of all U.S. crop area harvested in 2022, meaning that corn has the second largest crop area in the United States. By contrast, corn for silage only makes up a two percent share of the total U.S. crop area. In 2022, approximately 13.7 billion bushels of corn for grain were produced in the United States. The vast majority of corn grown in the United States is enhanced with biotechnology.

Corn utilization in the U.S.

Though it is a popular and widely available vegetable in the United States, most of the corn grown in the United States is processed into ethanol, used as animal feed, or used to manufacture high fructose corn syrup. Of the 20 billion metric bushels of corn utilized in the United States in 2020/2021, about five billion metric bushels went to the production of ethanol and other by-products. In 2021, the average American consumed 4.3 pounds of fresh sweet corn, a decrease from about 9.2 pounds of sweet corn in 2010.