Second to the United States as an ethanol producer, Brazil uses sugarcane as the primary feedstock for its biofuels industry. Summit Agricultural Group, based in north-central Iowa, is building a 60 million-gallon corn ethanol plant in Mato Grosso, the largest corn and soybean producing state in Brazil, says DTN. Summit says the $115 million plant, a collaboration with Fiagril, of Brazil, will be the first large-scale corn ethanol plant in the nation, with production to begin in the second half of 2017.
Summit chief executive Bruce Rastetter, an Iowa agribusiness leader, told DTN two years ago that it was becoming profitable for growers in Mato Grosso to double-crop corn and soybeans. Farmers were looking for a way to boost prices for corn – a role that ethanol has played in the Midwest – and the ethanol co-product of distillers dried grains could be sold to cattle feedlots being established in the region.