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Corn Growers Struggle Amid Decreased Ethanol Demand

Harvest Public Media | By Dana Cronin
Published March 27, 2020 at 5:26 PM CDT
Elite Octane Ethanol in Atlantic, Iowa, is one of many Midwest plants. The industry has hit some snags in recent years.
Katie Peikes
/
Iowa Public Radio file photo
Elite Octane Ethanol in Atlantic, Iowa, is one of many Midwest plants. The industry has hit some snags in recent years.

As the price of gasoline plummeted amid COVID-19 restrictions, so has the price of ethanol.

 

And Midwestern corn farmers are beginning to feel the impacts.

 

“People like myself have been affected financially tremendously,” says Paul Jeschke, full-time corn farmer and District 5 Director of theIllinois Corn Marketing Board. 

 

Approximately40%of corn grown in the U.S. is made into ethanol, which is blended with gasoline to reduce emissions. With most Americans stuck inside amid social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, the demand for gasoline has dropped off, and with it, thedemandfor ethanol.

 

According to Jeschke, corn growers were hopeful the price of corn would surpass $4.00/bushel. However, withcurrentcorn bids well below that, Jeschke says many growers will have a hard time breaking even this year.

“There’s a lot of fear out here about this corn market and wondering where it’s gonna go from here,” he says.

Some ethanol plants have even been forced toclose down, including in Iowa and Nebraska.

“Each day that’s becoming a more dire situation, and that’s why farmers are more and more nervous about those markets,” says Jeschke.

Follow Dana on Twitter: @DanaHCronin

 

Copyright 2020 Harvest Public Media
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HPPR Economy and Enterprise Harvest Public MediacoronavirusCOVID effect on farming
Dana Cronin
Dana Cronin is a reporter based in Urbana, Illinois. She covers food and agriculture issues in Illinois for Harvest. Dana started reporting in southern Colorado at member station 91.5 KRCC, where she spent three years writing about everything from agriculture to Colorado’s highest mountain peaks. From there she went to work at her hometown station, KQED, in San Francisco. While there she covered the 2017 North Bay Fires. She spent the last two years at NPR’s headquarters in Washington D.C., producing for shows including Weekend Edition and All Things Considered.
See stories by Dana Cronin