The United States grows more than 85 million acres of corn and soybeans on the Great Plains. To improve soil health and discourage pests, farmers are also growing more diverse crops such as popcorn and dry edible beans. Nebraska grows about 1.5 billion bushels of corn and 319 million bushels of soybeans each year. King Corn has transformed agriculture worldwide—from its original use as a traditional food source in the Americas to its modern transformation into plastics and biofuels. Soybeans, native to East Asia, became a rotation crop companion to corn and is today a major U.S. crop.