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Farmers are optimistic about E15’s impact on corn demand

There’s been some debate as to just how much impact the approval of year-round E15 will have on corn demand.

Jan tenBensel, a farmer from Cambridge, Nebraska and chair of the Nebraska Ethanol Board, thinks it will be significant.

“It’s not going to be an instantaneous effect,” Ten Bensel says. “However, even in the short-term and medium-term, the ability to use higher blends of ethanol at home is really going to be able to move some more corn off these huge piles of surplus we have now.”

Farmer Kelly Nieuwenhuis of Primghar, Iowa, who serves on the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, thinks fuel retailers will welcome the change.

“When we get the E15 RVP relief, retailers can sell E15 year-round—and I think they’ll be coming on board pretty fast,” says Nieuwenhuis.

Scott McPheeters of Gothenburg, Nebraska, vice-chair of the Nebraska Ethanol Board, says the potential is huge.

“We produce 14 to 15 billion gallons now. So we would need an additional seven billion gallons to saturate the E15 market,” McPheeters says. “It’s really more than we can do right now. We’d have to ramp up and things would be kind of like in the old days, where we just need to build out and supply the market.”

The proposal must still go through the EPA’s rulemaking process and likely faces a legal challenge by the oil industry.

Brownfield spoke with the three farmers prior to President Trump’s rally in Council Bluffs on Tuesday.

AUDIO: Jan tenBensel and Scott McPheeters

 

AUDIO: Kelly Nieuwenhuis