July 11, 2007

Distillers' grains use now rampant among US livestock raisers

A newly released survey by the US Department of Agriculture said the use of distillers' grain as a source of nutrition is increasingly becoming popular among American livestock raisers.

Roughly half of the cattle and hog operations in a 12-state region either fed ethanol co-products or considered feeding them to their livestock last year, according to the report published by USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) with the support and funding of the Nebraska Corn Board.

Geoff Cooper, NCGA director of Ethanol and Business Development said the survey draws from a large sample of the Midwest and Great Plains livestock industry. The results provided good insight into the industry's attitudes toward distillers' grains, as well as feeding and procurement practices, he said

NASS contacted approximately 9,400 livestock operations in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Cooper said the survey also showed that many livestock operators are still undecided about using distillers' grains. About one-third of cattle and hog producers and more than one-fifth of dairy cattle operations have considered feeding co-products, but are not now using them. Cooper said this is a ripe opportunity for undecided operators to provide information about the use of distillers' grains in their livestock operations.

Quality and price were rated the most important characteristics for co-products by users, with consistent protein levels and product availability also rating as top considerations.