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Comment by retrac | Hacker News Reader

It is surprising how much politics and law can affect what is grown where. The US-Canada border cuts right across the prairies. Conditions are pretty much identical in northern North Dakota and southern Manitoba. Yet the border is clearly visible on some maps of agricultural yield:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OatsYield.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RyeYield.png

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Though lots of ethanol in Canadian gasoline too. Hard to find any without 10% ethanol, even in jurisdictions with limited corn growing.

What caused that?

Or do the US subsidies on corn make it cost effective for Canadians to burn ethanol? If so, where’s my cheap E85? I’d run it in my old Corolla and see what happens.

Here, let me Google that for you :)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/taxpayers-ontario-can...

Go ahead: your old Corolla will become a dead Corolla.

https://blog.raleighclassic.com/is-it-safe-to-use-ethanol-in...

There are several factors in addition to ethanol, right? US livestock feed is primarily maize, but is that true in Canada? And the US has nearly 10x as many cattle. It seems like regulations are the primary driver in the border split, but not all of the regulations are about ethanol (also, Canada uses corn to make ethanol, too, in some areas).

The prime Canadian corn growing regions are also oil producing jurisdictions, so I could see their lack of interest in oil alternatives.

> politics and law

Money and corruption to be more precise.

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