Brazil’s Ethanol Efforts Awe Iowa Corn Growers

By EMILY KLEIN

Corn growers from Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska recently took some time to closely examine Brazil – one of the world’s leaders in renewable fuels.

The mission was designed to give the corn leaders a firsthand look at Brazil’s infrastructure developments and its efforts to integrate farming and livestock production with ethanol and biodiesel processing.

The group found that Brazil’s ethanol industry currently produces 19 billion liters per year, exporting 2.5 billion liters. Production is expected to nearly double by 2012, and Brazil plans to develop an ethanol pipeline.

Transportation and infrastructure are the biggest challenge for Brazil’s agricultural sector, but efforts to expand and modernize its system could make infrastructure a major Brazilian asset in the future, according to the group that visited.

Iowa Corn Growers Association President Tim Recker said he was surprised by the Brazilian public’s acceptance of ethanol. The people seemed very pleased to be a part of the solution to the country’s energy dependence question.

Brazilian gas stations sell 100 percent ethanol, as well as a blend, he said.

The price difference between ethanol and regular gasoline in Brazil also is so significant that Recker said consumers gladly buy the renewable fuel.

In the United States, E10 blends can be found easily in some states, especially in the Midwest, but E85 pumps are fairly scarce. Recker said he thinks American consumers might be more willing to buy into the renewable energy movement if the price of ethanol was about 30 cents per gallon less than regular gasoline.

“We need to look at a national policy that promotes higher blends of ethanol than we currently have,” he said.

Sugar cane is widely used for ethanol production in Brazil, but the United States does not have enough acres suitable for the growth of sugar cane to make it a viable ethanol base ingredient here. Instead, corn is used most of the time.

“The sugar cane industry in Brazil has been revitalized by the ethanol boom there, much like the corn industry in the United States,” Recker said.

Ethanol production and consumption helped boost prices and demand for corn in the United States, as it did for sugar cane in Brazil.

Following the trip and research, the overall feeling of the Midwestern corn growers was a new appreciation for Brazil’s capacity to increase food and fuel production and compete with U.S. agriculture, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

“We hear a lot of general claims about Brazil. Our challenge was to dig into the details and find out what’s truth and what’s rumor,” said Dick Gallagher, an Iowa Corn Promotion Board director who serves as chairman for the group’s exports committee. “We wanted to see the industry firsthand, talk to farmers, ethanol plants, livestock producers and consumers.”

Klein’s e-mail address: eklein@wcinet.com

Originally published by EMILY KLEIN TH staff writer/eklein@wcinetcom.

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