GoodFuels

Ethanol production helping bolster livestock feed supply

In a story by Robert Pore of the Grand Island, NE Independent, there could be roughly a 50% increase in distillers grains (DDGS) in the 2008/2009 marketing year.

Now, what does this have to do with ethanol? DDGS are a nutrient rich co-product of the ethanol production process that is used as livestock feed, an often ignored benefit to ethanol production.

Scott Richman, senior vice president of Informa Economics, said as a result of the growth in the U.S. ethanol industry this year, 22.8 million tons of DDGS were available for global use in the 2007-2008 marketing year. He said that’s nearly a 50-percent increase from the 2006-2007 marketing year.

Richman said that in the 2008-2009 marketing year, which began Oct. 1, there’s likely to be an additional 50-percent increase in the availability of DDGS, reaching 31.3 million tons.

Earlier this year, meat and poultry producers attacked ethanol as the source of their financial woes, blaming ethanol production for using valuable corn. Hopefully this increase in abundant livestock feed (available as a result of ethanol production) will allow these producers to lower their costs and pass the savings onto their consumers.

Check out the whole story here.

Photo by Glynnis Ritchie.