Gale Lush, a Wilcox farmer and chairman of the American Corn Growers Foundation, said farmers counting on corn exports “has always been a questionable strategy," repors The Grand Island Independent.
Lush says ethanol has been a major, annual domestic consumer of 5.5 billion bushels of corn. In Nebraska, 40% of the state’s corn harvest is manufactured into ethanol and other by-products, such as dry distiller’s grain for livestock feed, at 24 ethanol plants across the state.
Dan McGuire, director of the corn growers foundation, told The Grand Island Independent, said without ethanol-driven corn demand growth during the past 20 years the U.S. farm economy would have been in a constant state of economic recession.
