Taiwanese Trade Team Explores Possibilities of DDGS
TAIWAN – Taiwan is looking at the benefits of high protein dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) feed, a co-product of corn-based ethanol, made in Ohio.Recently, the Ohio Corn Marketing Program (OCMP) hosted a trade team of agriculture nutrionists and livestock officials from TAiwan.
The group of 12, including Dr. Chin-Rong Huang, chairman of Taiwan’s National Animal Industry Foundation, toured the Anderson's/Marathon Ethanol plant; the Greenville plant produces 350,000 tons of DDGS annually.
"Ohio has the ethanol plants to produce 1 million tons of DDGS per year," said Dwayne Siekman, executive director of the Ohio Corn Marketing Program.
The combination of increasing grain prices and a limited domestic supply of feed ingredients has made U.S. distiller’s dried grains with solubles an attractive commodity for end-users in Asia.
"We are looking at the possibility of importing DDGS to Taiwan," said Ling-Hsueh Yeh Liang, deputy general manager of Charoen Pokphand Enterprise (Taiwan0 Co., Ltd).
The US ethanol industry will continue to grow in 2009, creating a substantial increase in the supply of DDGS. According to the US Grains Council, ethanol production increased in 2008 by approximately 3 billion gallons to 9.3 billion gallons compared to last year.
Even more critically, production is projected by Informa Economics to reach 11.9 billion gallons in 2009. According to Ken Hobbie, USGC president and CEO, roughly 33 per cent of the grain going into US ethanol production will come out as DDGS.
The trade mission also stopped at farms operated by Ohio Corn Marketing Program Board Member Steve Vanzant, former OCMP board member Bruce Long and Ralph Dull, who operates the Future Energy and Conservation Center in Brookville, Ohio.
TheCattleSite News Desk