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U.S Corn Shortage Prompts 20 Ethanol Plants to Halt Production

Ethanol production won’t likely resume until 2013 corn harvest

By , Farms.com

The ongoing U.S drought has made corn a scarce commodity, which has forced 20 ethanol plants in the United States to halt production.

According to the Renewable Fuels Association, 20 out of 211 ethanol plants have had to halt production over the past year. Most of the plants will still remain open, as this will be an opportunity to perform maintenance related tasks. Despite this, it is expected that ethanol production won’t resume again until this year’s corn is harvested sometime in August or September.

There is a growing concern that another season of drought during this year’s corn-growing season could mean bad news for the industry. Corn is expected to remain in short supply and expensive until the 2013 corn crop is harvested.


Trending Video

Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.