America’s Corn Syrup Habit Could Fill New Jersey
The U.S. corn belt is large enough to cover the entire D.C.-to-Boston train corridor.
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Imagine riding a train through America’s most densely populated region. The cities and suburbs are gone, and instead you see nothing but corn.
That’s the vastness of U.S. corn harvest, estimated at 83.1 million acres this year, government data show. Transplanting the Corn Belt to the Northeast would cover the combined area of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington D.C.—every state connected by the so-called Acela corridor favored by business-class train commuters along the Eastern Seaboard.