Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Missouri Corn Talk, your go to weekly agriculture podcast. Delivering fast, reliable updates on market development efforts, ethanol demand and the issues shaping today's corn industry. I'm your host, David Geiger. Growing global ethanol demand creates opportunities for U.S. corn growers, but building those markets takes technical expertise and collaboration. A well known ethanol expert, Missouri Corn CEO Bradley Shadd recently joined a U.S. grains and Bioproducts Council mission for the U.S. india Biofuel Summit 2026. Bradley, thank you so much for joining us. And let's start with the big picture. Why is India such an important market to watch and look at while you're looking at ethanol?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: It's huge in the marketplace because one, there's so many people there and it's a growing population, they've got a growing middle class and they're good trading partners and so we've got to work with them to try and, and get as much of that market demand as possible. Coming here from the United States rather than from our competitors overseas, they're great, great to deal with as far as their secure nation. And so we wanted to work with them, kind of give them opportunities to learn from our mistakes, things that we have done wrong. We've been doing ethanol a lot longer than they have, but on the fuel side of things, they've actually moved a lot quicker. They've already to E20. But the thing about it is they don't have quite the fuel pool that the United States does. But there's, it's definitely growing because there's 1.2 billion people there. And to take into consideration that they've got a larger English speaking population than what the United States does, whenever that's not their main language, that's, that's a pretty big deal. So they're great partners and, and we just want to work together to make sure that both of our countries have a fuel supply that is safe and reliable and ultimately renewable. We want to make sure that they, they have the ability to use all the ethanol they can in that, but also they produce a lot of products from ethanol. We backfilled that market as they've moved more of their ethanol to fuel and we've backfilled that market and there's some other opportunities that they have on cooking and things like that. So we, we just went over there to have conversations, build those relationships even stronger than what we've already got and just learn from each other on, on what things are going right and, and what we can do to, to grow together.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Building markets, as you were talking about, has its own set of challenges, even involving and beyond them potentially having a little bit more distance, being a little bit further ahead than the US in terms of E20.
But it involves these challenges, it involves understanding those challenges, it involves understanding their culture over there. Tell me about the summit and how this focused on roadblocks specifically for ethanol.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so we had great conversations, but we both had panel discussions as well as we had round, roundtable discussions. Of course, we went out and met with industry afterwards, but we talked about how the, the challenges of ethanol cleaning up the fuel, the years of using gasoline can produce some gums and varnishes inside that fuel tank. And so as it cleans those out, you, you've got to do some maintenance on the fuel filters to make sure that those stay cleaned out and catch all of the debris, the varnish and gum that that is getting built up in these tanks over, over many, many years. So little things like that, that as long as you're keeping that fuel filter fresh, once it gets it cleaned out, it's going to stay clean and you won't have to worry about it in the future. So, because ethanol is a very good, good fuel, we talked about how there's a lot of misperceptions out there that, you know, ethanol has in using an internal combustion engine and the research that had been done to prove that it is safe. You know, our own EPA government, whenever we did testing for E15 to get the allowability year round, which we unfortunately still don't have, but as we did that, we actually did testing all the way on E20 and it passed them. And so I believe they use some of that data to show that they could go that far, but they're looking at going even farther, just as Brazil has with E30. So it's, it's great to see these countries do that, but it's also great to know that with India, there's a lot of countries in that area that look to India for their fuel needs and understanding of what they do. So they're, India is the leader and a lot of other countries will follow. So as we get them in a better position to, to use more of their ethanol as well as, as ours to backfill whenever needed, these other countries are going to see that as well and want to prosper just like India is doing with the benefit because it has helped their rural economies significantly, which is what their Prime Minister has promised. They, he wanted to help them out, Prime Minister Modi and he, he has done a phenomenal job with the people out there. In the countryside that are raising the crops to go into their ethanol. Of course, theirs is primarily rice based over there, but as they, they move forward, they, they see the benefits of corn as well. So it's just working together, learning, learning from each other how we can, how can we can benefit each other's countries
[00:05:03] Speaker A: in working with each other's countries.
Let's go over the additional opportunities beyond just eat. And how does Missouri corn growers work with India to potentially add different products to their market?
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, so like I said, they, they have been using ethanol for a long time in India for their industrial purposes. And as they continue using those, but they're, they're using more of their ethanol for the fuel because there's, there's actually an import ban on using US Ethanol for fuel. And that's okay. We, they, they've got a protectionistic society, but yet we're, we're working to build those relationships. So maybe someday that can be broken down whenever they get to these higher blends. But also we'd love to just sell them direct corn to be used as well. And so using that for feed over there, it's a very good feed source. And so just building those relationships, knowing that they've got a partner that they can pull from in times, whenever they've, they've had some droughts and things going on. In talking with the industry after we met with them, they're having some significant challenges meeting that E20 mandate that they have over there. And so if they need to backfill, we, we have the opportunity to sell more corn to them. But if we've got that relationship already built, it's so much easier to be able to sell them our corn because they know we're a reliable supplier. And that's, that's the big thing that we did while we were over there is building, building relationships. It takes time. That's what market development is, is making sure that they understand that we have the ability to fill their needs. So we want to make sure that they have, have, have the ability to, to import from the United States. And they can't do that if they, they think that we're just forcing ethanol on them or forcing our corn on them. But whenever they, if we can build those markets, build those relationships, show the opportunity that they have to be able to use more corn for ethanol for other purposes. For many bioproducts, they're, they're using a lot in plastics over there, which is huge. Some of that's coming back here the United States.
So building, building that demand up, and building those relationships up is very, very key in having more trade.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Bradley, thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise on the US India Biofuel Summit and the opportunities ahead for ethanol.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Moving forward requires strong partnerships and continued conversations for Missouri corn growers. That work matters because every opportunity to expand ethanol use can help create demand for the corn produced here at home.
That's it for this week's Corn Talk, made possible by the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council and the Missouri Corn Growers Association. To learn more about Missouri corn's efforts to build demand for corn at home and around the world, visit mocorn.org or follow on our social channels. I'm David Geiger. Thanks for listening.
