NEW PARIS, Ohio — They came, they observed and now they’re sold on the benefits of distillers grain.

This past week the Ohio Corn Marketing Program hosted a number of dairy, swine, poultry and aquaculture nutrition experts from several Latin American countries. The group made stops at an ethanol plant in Greenville and three Ohio farms to learn how corn is not only harvested but turned into ethanol.

Their chief objective was to learn how the ethanol co-product dried distillers grains (or DDGS) can be used on their own farms and feedlots in South America.

“This is an important process not only for the U.S., but for the Latin American countries as well,” said Jaime Cuellar, USGC Consultant from Colombia. “This development is a great opportunity for producers and end-users and this tour gave our experts a chance to see how the corn is harvested and what processes take place once the corn leaves the farm, and how that corn is turned into ethanol.”

According to the Ohio Corn Marketing Program out of Columbus, Ohio has seven ethanol plants under construction with a total ethanol capacity of 500 million gallons, resulting in one million tons of DDGS.

When ethanol is produced the result is three-fold: ethanol, carbon-dioxide and distillers grain. It is the distillers grain that intrigues so many farmers nowadays, especially this delegation from Latin American countries.

“We’re especially interested in knowing the processes involved in producing the DDGS and how it can benefit our livestock back home,” said Alexandra Amorocho, a nutritionist from Colombia whose concentration is dairy. “We’ve been observing how DDGS is used here in the U.S. and through evaluations we’ll see how it can be used back home as animal feed. We need to see if it is viable and do some studies. The only drawback is that by the time the by-product reaches us it is so expensive. Hopefully the price will go down and we can use it.”

According to Amorocho, the price of corn reaches $280 per ton in Colombia.

“We also have to examine the characteristics of the feed itself and the viability of the DDGS, and to standardize the co-product,” she said.

According to Dwayne Siekman of the Ohio Corn Marketing Program, this benefits Ohio farmers greatly.

“This is a program that Ohio corn farmers fund into which is part of the U.S. Grains Council to increase the exports of corn as well as distillers grain,” Siekman said. “This delegation from Latin American wanted to learn more about, see Ohio farmers in production of the corn and see the quality of the product they produce. This also helps showcase what Ohio can offer.

“This year Ohio corn growers have produced more corn in the history of this country and lot of that is due to the increase in the demand for ethanol, and with the increase in the demand for ethanol we are seeing the development of a new feed industry, and that’s distillers dried grain. Not only do U.S. livestock and poultry people want to learn more about DDGS but so does the worldwide community.”

According to Siekman, Ohio’s corn has normally been directed to the Asian market, but inroads are being made to send corn-based products to Latin America.

Roughly 11 million tons of distillers grains is represented in the collective production capacities of ethanol plans either online or under construction today in the United States.

Approximately 2 million tons of DDGS are already being exported annually, but that number needs to double or triple in order for this growing industry to thrive.