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Michigan Corn wants higher ethanol blends and more pumps

The Michigan Corn Growers Association supports legislation in Congress that fixes issues limiting ethanol blending.

Executive Director Jim Zook tells Brownfield the Year-Round Fuel Choice Act also gives consumers more choices at the pump and with vehicle purchases.

“Because it allows for our auto industry to actually build a vehicle that will utilize higher octane fuels and it will still allow the autos to meet some of their EPA requirements,” he says.

Zook says in Michigan the ethanol industry is a large user for the state’s corn production but there are very few fueling stations that offer 15 percent ethanol.

“It does significantly take about 30-40 percent of our corn crop,” he explains.  “As we have seen in the past 16 months with the COVID issue, when we had a decrease in driving, we had about a 55 percent drop in the amount of ethanol that was consumed.”

He says Michigan farmers lost about a dollar per bushel for corn during the pandemic as a result and the state’s economy lost about $2.1 billion.

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