Byproduct Helps Ranchers Near Ethanol Plants
US - Corn’s move from food source to energy provider might contribute to higher costs of feeding cattle, but some dairy farmers and beef ranchers are finding advantages to being close to an ethanol plant.
29 August 2007
1 minute read
Converting corn into ethanol produces a byproduct called distillers grains, which can be used as high-protein livestock feed. Most are dried so they can be shipped across the country and overseas, but cattle ranchers within 50 miles or so from an ethanol plant can save money by buying wet distillers grains.
“It looks like something you’d want to put on your breakfast cereal.”
Eric Nelson.
Eric Nelson, who operates two feedlots in western Iowa, buys modified wet distillers grains from Little Sioux Corn Processors ethanol plant, which is just down the road from his Marcus, Iowa, feedlot.
Nelson said he started using the grains for 20 percent of his rations but has since upped his mixture to 30 percent. It has worked well for his operation, and the cattle seem to like it, too, he said.
“It smells good,” Nelson said. “It looks like something you’d want to put on your breakfast cereal.”
Drying wet distillers grains involves separating the liquid from the mash, partially dehydrating that liquid into a syrup and adding it back into grain. That costs money, so plants can pass the savings and lower shipping charges to farmers and ranchers, said Don Endres, chairman and chief executive officer of Brookings-based VeraSun Energy Corp.
Endres said dairy farms and feedlots are building or expanding around VeraSun’s plants.
Source: The Rapid City Journal
