INDIANAPOLIS – Corn checkoff organizations, such as the Indiana Corn Marketing Council (ICMC) and the U.S. Grains Council (USGC), make it a priority to find buyers for ethanol and improve the value of Indiana’s corn crop. To accomplish this mission, ICMC and USGC hosted opinion-makers, communication and public officials from Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia and Chile for a tour of Indiana’s ethanol supply chain.

The tour started in the cornfield of an Indiana farm, followed a grain truck to a nearby ethanol plant, watched ethanol filling gas tanks at a fuel station, then experienced the power and speed of ethanol-fueled racing cars. The tour attendees learned about the U.S. ethanol industry, the U.S. Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) and the benefits associated with the use of ethanol for transportation. The tour provided first-hand information to Latin American media, allowing them to gather objective details of the U.S. ethanol sector and its potential use in Latin America.

“The purpose of this tour is to highlight the reliability, economic and environmental benefits of U.S.-produced ethanol to people who influence the buying decisions of many people from Latin American countries,” said ICMC Biofuels Director Helena Jette. 

She added that ethanol helps all Hoosiers by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. In fact, the American Lung Association reports that ethanol improves air quality by replacing some of the most harmful components in gasoline. This results in 43 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. Indiana ranks as the 6th-largest producer of U.S. ethanol. The Hoosier State produces nearly 8 percent of the total U.S. ethanol output. Collectively, Indiana’s ethanol plants consume about 45 percent of Indiana’s total corn crop – around 450 million bushels.

The USGC brought the tour group to one of its leaders to start the program. Recent USGC President Josh Miller, a farmer from Anderson, Ind., hosted the tour and explained how he grows the crop that makes the fuel. 

The Latin American visitors next toured the POET ethanol biorefinery in Alexandria, Ind. This state-of-the-art bioethanol production facility consumes more than 21 million bushels of locally grown corn to produce 90 million gallons of bioethanol annually.

The next stop was a Casey’s gas station in Marion, Ind. Many Casey’s gas stations sell higher blends of ethanol such as Unleaded 88, a blend of 15 percent ethanol with 85 percent gasoline, and E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The Marion store sells each of these blends. ICMC has helped Casey’s expand its ethanol offerings through a program that pays for pumps that sell higher ethanol blends.

The rest of the tour was dedicated to racing. The attendees watched timed racing at the Marion, Ind., airport called the Indy Airstrip Attack. 

“This weekend’s events were more than a good time watching all types of racing,” Jette said. “This has been an excellent opportunity to share the story of Indiana-made ethanol.”