2018 Farm Outlook

Page 14 2018 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS Oct. 25, 2018 By Jim Youngquist The expansion of E15 and consumption of corn W ith continued research into new hybrids and GMOs, and the expansion of corn production acreage, we have experienced incredible increases in yields, and the result is that we have more corn but not an appetite for greater consumption. The result for producers is non-sustaining lower prices. So the greater challenge is to find new markets or expand existing markets for the consumption of corn. In the 1970s the addition of ethanol to gasoline began because the current stabilizing additive, MTBE, was found to be contaminating groundwater. By 2005 MTBE was banned in 20 states and the norm became the addition of 10% ethanol to gasoline to raise the octane level, and provide the needed oxygenating stabilizer. Corn prices at the time were around $2 a bushel, and with the nationwide adoption of E10 as a standard for automobile gasoline, it is estimated that ethanol production added somewhere between 75 cents to $1 a bushel to the price of corn. The aim in 1970 was to achieve energy self- sufficiency, avoiding politically charged purchases and commitments for fuels to unstable regimes in middle-eastern countries. Today the aims have changed. With the expansion of shale oil production in the gasoline industry we are now energy self-sufficient and are now a petroleum CONTINUED Once full, the combine quickly off-loads grain to a waiting truck, which then hits the road for the elevator or back to the farm for storage. Photo Jan Youngquist