FB Crop Meeting

Nearly 25 Putnam County Farmers had the opportunity to hear from Lynn Campbell of Cargill AgriHorizons Marketing Services and David Brooks and Trent Gray from POET biorefining on Thursday, August 19th. Lynn spoke to the group on Cargill's Personal Marketing Manager services where their experienced personnel will work with local farmers in analyzing the various crop markets and be able to explain the reasons behind each increase or decrease in crop prices along with changes in input costs. David Brooks, the General Manager of the POET Ethanol plant in Marion, Ohio and Trent Gray, the Commodity Manager for the plant in Alexandria, IN are working to help get the Cloverdale Ethanol plant up and running. The Cloverdale plant plans to begin purchasing corn immediately to fill the two existing bins at the site and then will purchase more corn in Feb. to fill two additional bins to be built. After $30 million in upgrades they plan to begin operation the end of March. The plant will employ around 40 people and interviews for hourly employment will begin at the end of this year. POET is currently the largest company in the world for the production of Ethanol. Trent suggested going to www.poet.com/alexandria for more information on prices and other news. The plant in Cloverdale will be a zero discharge plant. POET supports the addition of blending pumps to allow Ethanol customers to dial the % Ethanol they want in their gas. Any of today's cars can operate on a blend of as much as 50% but current engines work best with a 30%-40% blend and expect only a minimal drop of 1 MPG. Current research is working on an engine that will increase MPG and engine horsepower.