www.WATTpoultry.com MARCH 2008 volu me 113 number 3
Grain Prices Will Decliine...Eventually
Industry News
Standing-Room-Only as UEP Debates How to
Counter Activists
What Was New at this Year’s IPE
Calendar
Marketplace
1
7
8
10
13
14
Grain Prices Will Decline…Eventually
More acreage and higher yields are the keys to lower feed prices.
ETHANOL PLANTS COMING ON LINE Between Now and the end of 2008
Total
Bushels
of Plants Needed
(Mil)*
State
Gallons of
Annual
Capacity (Mil)
Additional
Bushels
Needed (Mil)*
Est. 07
Corn
Production
08 Capacity
/07
Production
new plateau for the grain industry. The result is uncertainty as
to where grain prices are headed
and how they will ultimately affect food industry prices.
Illinois 5
Indiana 5
Iowa 15
Minnesota 6
Nebraska 4
Ohio 7
S. Dakota 2
Other 27
Total 71
*Ethanol yield 2.75 gal/bu.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5,817
5,817
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2,115
2,115
321
175
722
244
418
0
228
2,770
4,879
2,314
1,003
2,441
1,185
1,458
542
556
3,668
13,168
When added to the existing 127 plants, total ethanol production will exceed the 2015 mandate by the end of next year. Chart courtesy of Brock Associates, 2008.
By Sue Roberts, Executive Editor
Corn, already in the upper $4/bu.
level, is likely to reach at least $5
per bushel on the farm this year.
“For most of the poultry operations,
add 50 cents to that and that is the base
line – high priced corn,” predicts Richard Brock, owner and president of
Brock Associates, agricultural advisory firm.
The culprit: oil. Brock, who spoke at
the International Poultry Expo in Atlanta, says that the old rule of thumb
has hit home – if the price of a commodity is too high for too long, some-
14% Plant Proliferation
17% Fifteen million gallons of the
30% Energy Bill’s mandated 36 mil-
21% lion gallons of ethanol by 2015
is to come from grain ethanol, or
29%
corn. This directive has prompted
0% a growing crop of ethanol plants
41% across the United States.
76% Brock estimates that there are
37% 127 plants currently operating,
each producing an average of 57
million gallons of ethanol annually. Seventy-one plants are under
construction, with an anticipated
average capacity of 82 million
gallons each, which will collectively
require 4,879 million bushels of corn.
Plants scheduled to be operational
by the end of this year include five in
Illinois, five in Indiana, 15 in Iowa, six
in Minnesota, four in Nebraska, seven
one will find a way to produce more of
it, use less of it, or use something else.
Part of that “something else” is ethanol that is diverting corn and other
grain away from feed, playing havoc
with price projections and creating a
