In the next six years, the amount of ethanol production is expected to double. With more corn ethanol plants coming online, the distillers are looking for ways to sell one of the by-products.
The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports ethanol distillers are selling the corn mash left over from turning corn into ethanol:
Transcript
In the next six years, the amount of ethanol production is expected to
double. With more corn ethanol plants coming online, the distillers
are looking for ways to sell one of the by-products. The GLRC’s
Lester Graham reports ethanol distillers are selling the corn mash
left over from turning corn into ethanol:
The mash, called distillers grain, is a good livestock feed. It’s
higher in protein than the same amount of corn. Since most of the
ethanol plants are being built in the corn-belt, the distillers are
trying to get nearby livestock operations to buy the distillers grain.
Jim Hilker is an agriculture marketing expert at Michigan State
University. He says that works… up to a point…
“It depends on whether the livestock is near. It appears, as many
plants are going up, that we’re going to saturate some areas. They’ll
have to be shipped somewhere.”
That means drying the distillers grain… and shipping it… both adding
to the cost. The trick is to keep the price the same or cheaper than
corn… to keep it competitive. With 97 plants operating and another 34
under construction to meet the government’s call to produce a lot more
ethanol… there could soon be a glut of distillers grain.
For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.