It’s a matter of taste and cooking skills but field corn is quite edible. But most will go directly to silage and some to alcohol conversion where the leftovers go to supplement the silage and other ingredients. That helps to produce high quality milk at dairies or choice to prime meats at various finishing lots. It’s all good food!
The byproducts of ethanol fermentation is distillers dried grains with soluble aka DDGS this is top quality cattle feed or goats or sheep. Which can also be used as a protein source for hogs. The stalks from corn makes for good silage if wet bailed in the field and inoculated. Lots of times cows are just turned loose in a freshly harvested corn field they will eat all the leaves and stalls plus any grains lost to the ground. Contrary to the internet corn for ethanol is not an either or issue. Wet milled number two dent is where corn cooking oil comes from. DDGS is cattle feed par excellence cows need the protein not carbohydrates. Field silage is also quality cattle feed that stores for months while it ferments. Human use of dent #2 is limited to corn meals, corn flakes, or corn masa. The market for those products is tiny compared to the cattle feed market.