Ethanol Exports at 5-Year High

One of the marketing newsletters I read every day is the Van Trump Report. It is an email I get every day that has many pages of information. Yes, I actually pay for it but it is a tax deduction. I am a farm broadcaster and also raise corn and soybeans. One of the reasons I like the Van Trump Report is that is has information that is not in many other market newsletters. An example of that is an article this morning on ethanol exports.

Ethanol exports for the first quarter of the 2016/17 marketing year are the highest levels in five years! Brazil, Canada, and China were the top three countries importing ethanol from the United States. Brazil alone imported 111.6 million gallons of ethanol from the United States in the first quarter of this marketing year. The Brazilian government has mandated higher use of ethanol and they are importing ethanol from the United States.

This did not seem logical to me because I thought Brazil grew a lot of sugarcane that was made into ethanol. Brazil does produce a lot of sugarcane, but it is being used for sugar instead. This is another sign of good demand for corn. Whether we export corn, or add value to it by fermenting it into ethanol and export the ethanol it is still demand for corn.