Taiwan is looking at the benefits of high protein DDGS feed, a byproduct of corn-based ethanol.

Taiwan is looking at the possibility of importing DDGS, according to Ling-Hsueh Yeh Liang, deputy general manager of Charoen Pokphand Enterprise (Taiwan Co., Ltd).

Recently, the Ohio Corn Marketing Programme (OCMP) hosted a trade team of agriculture nutritionists and livestock officials from Taiwan.

The Taiwanese group toured the Anderson's/Marathon Ethanol plant, which produces 350,000 tonnes of DDGS per year.

Ohio's ethanol plants produce 1 million tonnes of DDGS annually, said Dwayne Siekman, executive director of the OCMP.

DDGS has become an attractive commodity in Asia due to higher grain prices and a limited domestic supply of feed ingredients.

The US ethanol industry is expected to continue growing in 2009, which would greatly increase DDGS supply. The US Grains Council (USGC) said ethanol production grew in 2008 by about 3 billion gallons from last year to 9.3 billion gallons.

Ethanol production is projected by Informa Economics to reach 11.9 billion gallons next year. Ken Hobbie, president and CEO of USGC estimated that 33 percent of the grain going into US ethanol production will come out as DDGS.