As an American born and raised in Illinois I can also inform the rest of the populace our corn also gets used to make ethanol, an alternative fuel source.
Hawaii does have the largest coffee growing industry in the entire US but they are severely limited by the amount of available land. Compared to other coffee-producing nations, the Big Island is microscopically tiny, so they mainly focus on high quality, artisanal product sold at extremely high prices. Not that I would mind if all the coffee sold everywhere would be replaced by Kona coffee overnight, but it just isn’t feasible.
People listing Hawaii like they could meet the total US demand, even if they could scale to maximum production overnight.
Most of the corn we eat is Brazilian. Most of the corn we grow is feed corn for cows and process corn for HFCS and other processed food ingredients.
As an American born and raised in Illinois I can also inform the rest of the populace our corn also gets used to make ethanol, an alternative fuel source.
Ethanol is incredibly inefficient as a fuel source.
If not for the massive subsidies it would not exist.
Still, ethanol is a better fuel additive than lead. (Both reduce knocking)
Still, the far better use is to grow food.
Hawaii does have the largest coffee growing industry in the entire US but they are severely limited by the amount of available land. Compared to other coffee-producing nations, the Big Island is microscopically tiny, so they mainly focus on high quality, artisanal product sold at extremely high prices. Not that I would mind if all the coffee sold everywhere would be replaced by Kona coffee overnight, but it just isn’t feasible.