Food-Versus-Fuel Debate Rages Anew

Ethanol appears almost certain to win the food-versus- fuel contest in the United States. But not just yet. The Agriculture Department forecast that a tad more corn will be used to make ethanol than to feed livestock this year may be a false milestone: ethanol makers say they won’t use that much corn while producing

Ethanol Producer Adding Cheap Wheat To Corn

The Andersons Inc., a major U.S. ethanol producer, has started mixing wheat into its corn-based biofuel in a move to lower costs and diversify its sourcing amid increasingly tight corn supplies. Andersons, which operates three U.S. ethanol plants with total capacity of 300 million gallons, has started using soft red winter wheat along with corn.


Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Coming?

The straw Red River Valley farmers burn in their fields could soon be burning in their half-ton engines instead. An official with Shell Canada confirmed the fossil fuel oil company is looking across Western Canada, including Manitoba, for a site to build a cellulosic ethanol plant with its partner Iogen Corporation. “Shell has committed to

Feed Wheat Helps To Fill Corn Void

Arecord five billion bushels of corn will be used to make fuel ethanol, a potential strain on the tightest U.S. corn supply in 15 years, but it will be offset by more use of wheat as a substitute for corn in hog and poultry rations, said the government on April 8. USDA pegged the carryover


USDA Changes Corn Wording After Ethanol Makers Complain

The U.S. government introduced new wording on corn use on April 8 following complaints from ethanol makers that they were not getting credit for the corn byproducts that are fed to livestock. Instead of saying “corn for ethanol” in its monthly report, the U.S. Agriculture Department now spells out the corn is going to produce

Don’t Overlook Feed Value Of DDGs

Ethanol producers often get much of the blame for driving the price of corn to its current multi-year high levels due to that industry’s strong usage of corn to make fuel. But critics overlook the growing production and distribution of Dried Distillers Grains (DDGs), a byproduct of ethanol output used in animal feeds as an


The Food Versus Fuel Debate Continued

With all the strange and highly unpredictable events in the global economy, the tension between economics and politics in the U.S. is making things even more interesting. Consider this: a highly indebted U.S. government pays ethanol producers 45 cents for each gallon they produce, while at the same time imposing a 54-cent tariff on imports.

Syngenta To Go Ahead With Ethanol-Specific Corn

Amonth after receivi ng regulatory approva l , Swiss agricultural company Syngenta is starting to sign up U.S. farmers to grow its new biotech corn seed aimed at ethanol production, but expects to enrol fewer than 20,000 acres in a contracted growing arrangement this spring, a top company executive said Mar. 16. Syngenta is meeting


U.S. Ethanol Incentives Under Scrutiny

Reform of U.S. ethanol incentives could save up to $5.7 billion a year, a congressional watchdog said March 1 as ethanol critics called on Congress to let the tax breaks expire at the end of this year. In an examination of federal spending, the Government Accountability Office said the ethanol tax credit and a federal

U.S. Ethanol Policy Roundly Criticized

If the United States reduced the amount of corn required for its ethanol requirements by just one per cent, it would double Zimbabwe’s entire annual corn consumption and save American taxpayers $50 million a year. Bill Lapp, a U.S. market analyst, tossed those statistics out at the annual GrainWorld conference in Winnipeg last week to