Tight Fuel Ethanol Supplies In Brazil Boost Imports From The United States

Apr 28, 2017

U.S. fuel ethanol exports are up significantly for the 2016/17 marketing year, primarily driven by increased exports to Brazil. The change is related to an increase in Brazil’s sugar prices, which is due to strong international demand for the country’s sugar exports. As a result, the country’s sugarcane refiners have shifted processing capacity from ethanol to sugar. Since Brazil has a 27-percent ethanol inclusion mandate for gasoline, the decline in output has left fuel refiners short of supplies.

This has caused an increase in ethanol shipments from the United States, where corn supply is abundant, making up for Brazil’s shortfall. U.S. ethanol shipments to Brazil began rising in October 2016, jumping 138 percent that month. The pace has continued at an elevated level through February 2017, the latest month for which trade data are available.

From October 2016 through February 2017, fuel ethanol shipments to Brazil surged 547 percent, compared with the same period a year earlier. In addition, U.S. shipments to the world rose 65 percent and exports to Canada, also a major buyer, rose by 57 percent. This chart appears in the ERS Feed Outlook report released in April 2017.

Source:usda.gov

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.