The Great Lakes and Corn Belt

The Great Lakes and Corn Belt is an important part of the North American economic core. This area consisting of Canada's largest city and a number of US cities including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and a small portions of several adjacent states, is a region of great agricultural productivity. Although Los Angles is not included in this region, the Great Lakes and Corn Belt's overall prosperous productivity in agriculture and all economic sector benefits every region in the United States. Los Angeles, benefiting from the agriculture and local production of ethanol. As the name implies, corn is one of the major crops of the Great Lakes and Corn Belt region. In Geography of North America, it states that "corn is the most widely produced feed grain in the United States, accounting for more than 90 percent  of total value and production of feed grains. Corn is also processed into a multitude of food and industrial products, including starch, sweeteners, corn oil, beverage and industrial alcohol, and fuel ethanol". In California, statistics show that in 2010 the highest corn production in California is in San Joaquin county producing 10-15 millions of corn bushels. However, ethanol plants are located in a couple regions bordering Los Angeles,  San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange county.

Lets look further into ethanol's benefits and its correlation to corn to give us a better understanding of the impact of the Great Lakes and Corn Belt region. 

• Ethanol plants are the facilities where ethanol fuel is created and extensively processed before being transported for sale elsewhere.

• corn is a common source of ethanol,ethanol plants can transform other agricultural or biomass products, including fast-growing switch grasses, sugarcane, wood, and paper, into fuel. 

• Typically, ethanol plants are located near large corn fields, making it economically advantageous to obtain the corn necessary for the ethanol production process

• While ethanol is an alcohol used in alcoholic drinks, it is also used as a biofuel, which means that it is a fuel derived from biological materials like corn, rather than the very old biological materials used in fossil fuels.