Modern agriculture is not as simple as just making a decision one day to plant a different crop on your 3,000-acre farm or selling your existing ethanol corn crop to different customers for a different use. Interestingly, I suspect a big factor in the push for ethanol in gasoline is that it gave corn farmers a new market for their crops after corn had slowly been displaced by soybeans as the preferred feedstock for farm animals.
The Ag lobby has huge influence in Wash DC.
That’s why the libs put food stamps under the Agriculture Dept instead of “Health and Welfare” back in 74 and also federal subsidies to school lunches.