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May - Home-Grown Energy—Midwest Grain Processors
2007-11-04
The corn grown across Iowa’s landscape is often shipped out-of-state to processors who turn it into something more valuable. The processors make a much larger profit than the farmers who grew the corn. Farmers in northern Iowa wanted to capture more of the profits themselves, so they worked together to form Midwest Grain Processors, Iowa’s largest farmer-owned ethanol plant.
The plant near Lakota, which started operating in November 2002, processes over 16 million bushels of corn into 45 million gallons of ethanol and 135,000 tons of distillers dried grains. Besides providing better returns to the 1,000 farmer-owners, it has boosted the local economy by employing 35 full-time workers in well-paying jobs.
Photo by Jerry DeWitt
