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In Manitoba Canada, thier ethanol plant uses mostly grain, since corn does grow as well at that latitude. They can also use sugar beets and other crops depending on supplies. I can't figure out why corn is the only crop those ethanol plants use, when corn isn't even the best crop TO use for maximum ethanol production.

It must be a sweetheart deal with Ohio and it's mainly corn producers, ie someones getting they pockets lined.

Just as I can't see why a hog producer is squealing about corn prices for feed stocks. Most hog producers don't even use corn, at least not at any of the super barns around here.
Corn isn't the best for nutritional value, produces more stinky waste, and is always more expensive than other feed stocks, which are barley based blends, which include crops such as peas, lentils, soy beans, flax tailings, and waste from the human food markets, such as day old bread/ bakery waste, eggs, milk, vegetable and other products with expiry dates, all of which is gathered up by feedstock companies and mixed into cheap pigslop.

Plus, it isn't such a bad thing that commodity prices are going up, perhaps farmersw will make enough money actually growing crops and we can get rid of all those subsidies.

....."perhaps farmers will make enough money actually growing crops and we can get rid of all those subsidies."....

I agree with the first part of your post, but you are dreaming here. It would be like telling the "Grey Panthers" they have to take a $5 cut in SS to save the country. You would be sent home next election cycle. I love farmers and God bless em, but they have their own "union" knuckle dragger's that roam the halls of congress breaking knee caps. The sugar subsidy comes to mind down south. Can't get rid of it no matter what the price of sugar is.

"I can't figure out why corn is the only crop those ethanol plants use, when corn isn't even the best crop TO use for maximum ethanol production."

Right now corn is the best crop grown in this country to use for ethanol production. If our farmers could find a better one, they'd jump right on it. They're in this to make money. If there was a feedstock they could grow as cheaply as they grow corn and it would give higher per acre ethanol yields, they'd start growing it and would bring in more money for it per acre than they can get now for corn. Ethanol producers aren't any different, they're also in this to make money. They want the cheapest, highest yielding feedstock they can get. It's not hard for them to switch to another grain or another feedstock, although it may be difficult for some of these plants to make the big jump to cellulosic ethanol production if that technology ever pans out. A few plants already use other feedstocks besides corn, especially sorghum. They mostly all use nothing but corn though because corn is the cheapest feedstock they can get and they're able to get pretty high yields from it. There have been studies done on using sugar cane, sugar beets, and all sorts of other feedstocks, and none of the other feedstocks were as cost effective as corn for use as an ethanol feedstock in this country. Corn is abundant and relatively cheap, and it's about 70% starch, which can all easily be converted into fermentable sugars. They get about 2.8 gallons of ethanol per bushel now, and farmers are able to get well over 150 bushels per acre on average. Bushels per acre yields for corn keep improving as time goes on. Sugar cane would be better in terms of gallons of ethanol per acre yields, but there are very few places where it will grow in this country and what little we are able to grow ends up going for a high price for sugar production. The same applies to sugar beets, which on a per acre basis will produce more ethanol than corn, but they only grow well in limited parts of this country, they're expensive to grow and harvest and destructive to the soil (after a sugar beet crop farmers wait several years before planting them in the same field), and what little we are able to produce already command a high price in our lucrative sugar industry.

There is no great conspiracy to use nothing but corn for ethanol production in this country. The reason corn is the ethanol feedstock of choice in this country is because it's relatively cheap and high yielding as an ethanol feedstock. It's the best one we have, for the time being. When something better comes along, farmers and ethanol producers will quickly adapt and start growing it and using it to produce fuel.