The ethanol industry’s demand for corn has pushed up prices for the crop this year.
While that’s good news for growers, David Trowbridge – feedlot manager for Gregory Feedlots in Tabor – says it?s put the squeeze on his operation because corn’s increased in cost by about 50 percent in the last 90 days or so and he says that’s pushed up the cost of feeding animals accordingly.
But Trowbridge says he does believe an ethanol byproduct, dried distiller’s grains, can provide a big part of the answer to the problem of corn availability – if some of the kinks can be worked out. He says there’s work to be done in developing feeding procedures.
The dried grain left after the distilling process has high protein and although it hasn’t been found suitable for chickens or pigs, it can be fed to cattle.
Trowbridge spoke Tuesday at a conference of agri-marketing executives meeting in Ashland, Nebraska.