News

Ethanol export opportunities promising

The president of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board says they are seeking new markets to help increase demand for producers.

Ralph Lents tells Brownfield farmers need trade certainty.

“We’ve got a big corn crop we’ve got to get rid of this year,” he said. “Anytime we can find a new market, new ethanol market, or anything, it’s going to help our bottom line because it’s going to need a lot of help this year.”

He says the future of ethanol exports is promising.

“There’s a lot of countries looking to add ethanol to their mix. Japan is one. They’ve been at an E3, but they are headed for E10 so they’ll be increasing their market.”

Lents says there’s a big focus on getting U.S. ethanol into India.

“We’re going to have two missions over there to India this fall. One of them we’re working on DDGs which they desperately need for their dairy herds. They are very much interested in ethanol.”

He says other trade missions are also planned for Ecuador and Southeast Asia.

Lents spoke to Brownfield at the 2025 Iowa State Fair during Iowa Corn Day at the fair.