About this episode
No show notes were published with this episode.
Get every episode summarized
Each time Red River Farm Network publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Transcript ready
169 searchable segments. Every word is indexed and playable.
Full transcript
Red River Farm Network — Ag Innovation News Podcast Presented by AURI. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Welcome to the Ag Innovation News Podcast, presented by the Anger Cultural Utilization Research Institute of Minnesota. Welcome to the Ag Innovation News Podcast here from AURI, I'm your host, Jamie Dekerman, thanks for making us a part of your day today. And we're joined by a market development and industry relations director from Minnesota Corn Growers Association, Devon Hovarth and Devon, thanks for being here and could be able to chat with you. It's always exciting to talk about the world of corn because there's always so much to talk about or talking about corn, so thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, we get right into it because, you know, there's so much that maybe folks don't know.
And so when we look at the priorities for Minnesota Corn, when you look at the new uses and market development, what priorities for new uses and market development as Minnesota Corn have today and how did we get to that point? How were they developed? Sure, so under the utilization portfolio, we have the market development, which includes new uses as well. So our main priorities there of course include trade, ethanol and then the development of new and expanded uses for corn and corn products. Really every year we take a look at our strategic plan, which includes these priorities and the individual teams go through and come up with priorities for the coming year. And those teams are made up of Minnesota corn growers throughout the state, both from the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council within the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. And then the four boards take a look at what the teams come up with and then we go forward
and tackle that specifically under the new and expanded uses. Of course, we're looking specifically this year at the areas of expanded ethanol use and then of course continuing our long history of some of these polymers replacing petroleum products with corn based materials that are mostly developed here in Minnesota. Yeah, it's a crazy world that we're in right now with what's going on and the different types, different uses and things that are developing all the time. And it's great to be able to dive into that. So talk about some of the success with Minnesota Corn, catalyzing these new products, sparing demand, market opportunities, helping out really helping out corn farmers in the state of Minnesota. Yeah, Minnesota Corn has really had a long history in this space going back to, of course, ethanol is an obvious win to point to and all the work that Minnesota Corn has done over
the years to help continue to develop that market and come up with expanded uses. But when we turn into the polymer space, really Minnesota Corn was also at the beginning stages of PLA way back in the day and today we don't hear too much about PLA and it's kind of this forgotten chemical, but really it is a mature market. PLA is widely used across the globe and it really grows each year. It's a multi-billion dollar industry today and the primary feed stock for that at Cores is corn, but some recent successes I think that we can point to within the Minnesota Corn portfolio or really to spin out companies that came out of the University of Minnesota. The Center for Sustainable Polymers, which we've had a long history working with, we've been working with them since 2014. Lock rail technologies, which is converting corn through lactic acid to acrylic acid,
which of course there's so many uses for that across the world. And then Valerian Materials is another one who is creating a bio-based monomer that can be used for various processes, thinking about like phones, packaging that he says is those type of things. So we're really excited about some of those more recent successes and watching them progress. Now it's been, we've been a couple of years out working directly with these companies, but they're getting towards those stages of full commercialization, which is exciting where corn farmers will be able to realize the market availability with those products. And it's so vitally important to be able to find the different markets and uses for this product because if folks aren't aware of it, it's a record corn crop around the country. There's a lot of corn being grown right now and so there needs to be use for that,
for that corn. And that's where this comes in with these different industries and different things going on here. And so when you, as Minnesota corn, looks to partner with industry, how do you do that? How do you, the partner with these industries to support this new market development? Yeah, it's, I mean, it is a top market out there, starting new technologies and getting them to scale, really partnering with various organizations that can help these companies work through that scale and process beyond what we're able to do here at Minnesota Corn. You know, as you mentioned, record carry over crops, you know, each year we continue to grow more corn each year on the, you know, our acreage that we have. We just continue to be, be more productive. And for example, like I mentioned, lockerel technologies and malaria materials, those two companies together could potentially capture a market that would use about a billion
bushels of corn or more. So we're talking about really, of course, it's not going to happen overnight and it's going to take time to reach those volumes, but these spaces are, are some of the, the best opportunities for corn farmers to get into some of these new markets that will really have a large impact overall. Well, this is the AURI Ag Innovation News podcast. So I want to kind of ask you about that in the fact that how, how Minnesota Corn has worked with AURI in the past and maybe different projects or things that you've collaborated with them on? Sure, I think that that is also ties back to the last question with, you know, working with industry. You know, in recent years, AURI has really helped us do some techno economic analysis and market analysis for some of these new products when we're thinking about going into new spaces
that we don't know a whole lot about. But really, the real success that we've had with AURI over the last couple of years is really them being the connector, convenient where we can send some of these companies as they continue through the process, the AURI can be a resource for them because it is very difficult challenging for some of these startups to get through the entire process. And AURI has those connections to be able to help facilitate, do additional, you know, scale up work on the company's behalf. So that is really the success that we've had over the last couple of years with AURI. Well, obviously, Corn is very versatile. I mean, you know, we're kind of getting that idea from the different things we're talking about here, the, you know, a pretty versatile feedstock for a lot of different uses. So talk about maybe some of the most interesting new uses utilizing Corn that you've seen come
across your desk as we go here. Yeah, I mean, it is, they're all very interesting uses for Corn. Really, you think of anything that petroleum can be used as an ingredient. Corn can also be used basically as a replacement for them out of those products. So, you know, some of the most interesting ones, maybe, are some of the recent projects that we worked on, of course, we currently have a project that is looking at how do we create a bio-based fertilizer coating made from Corn. Of course, that is interesting from all sides of things, both from the, you know, production side, and then also for potential new use for Corn. But really, it's amazing all of the various products that can be made from Corn. I just think it, the most intriguing ones are just out of the box ideas that you wouldn't
really think about, Corn being able to be used, but, you know, creating foam from Corn. There are several companies that are working in that space, and just all the different plastics and polymers out there. It is, it is really impressive. The products that can be made from Corn. And we touched on this too, Devin, about, you know, how Corn continues to get to be more and more, more and more Corn is being grown all the time, the crops are getting larger and larger and larger, record crops all the time, where I've been one this year, you know, this past year. So when you look at the yields and the size of the crops continuing to grow, what about demand opportunities here in the next five years or so? What do you see as the most viable coming up for Corn? Sure. I think the bio-based chemical market will continue to grow and be a real bright star for Corn. I think it's going to probably take more than five years to fully develop, you know,
these processes take a long time to develop. In the near term, certainly the expanded uses for ethanol continue to be important, something that we work on closely, you know, for domestic ethanol use, but then also international as well. There's a growing demand internationally for ethanol as a fuel, but then also ethanol is a feedstock for renewable chemicals. So ethanol also will play a vital role in a lot of these bio-based chemicals as we go forward with advancements in technology and understanding some of the processes to make some of these bio-based products cost competitive with the petroleum counterpart, and that is really going to be the brightest opportunity as we go through these next five years for Corn. You know, one of the biggest buzzwords that we've hear a lot in the news, especially when you listen to agricultural news updates, you'll hear about E15 and year round E15, and
that's something that I know has been talked about for a long time. It's been debated for a long time, and it feels like we're on the cusp of that, Devon, that we're just about there, but we felt like that before, and then it's kind of like the old Charlie Brown cartoon where Lucy pulls the football out at the last second when Charlie's about to kick. That sort of feels like with E15, with getting that year round, but we are getting close, right? Yeah, I mean, there are signals that we're getting close. Beyond the policy and regulatory environment, you know, there's great opportunities. E15 was just, you know, approved for sale in California. That's a massive market. When you think about volumes, of course, California is a massive market for E85, but even expanding to basically every vehicle on the road can use E15, so that will be a big demand driver in the states here.
And then even, like I mentioned before, going even broader internationally, we're all seen as a really great solution for decarbonization efforts globally. So you have a lot of countries that are turning to very high blends of ethanol. You know, there's countries that are E20, E30 today. And unfortunately, you know, in the US, we have some hurdles that we need to overcome, but it does look like we're getting closer to resolving some of that. Well, let's keep our fingers crossed for that. Devon, thank you so much for taking some time to talk about what's going on in the world of corn for us. We appreciate it and all the best. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. Devon, how far out there with Minnesota Corn Growers Association, that's going to do it for this edition of the Ag Innovation News Podcast. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. This has been the Ag Innovation News Podcast presented by the Agricultural Utilization
Research Institute of Minnesota.
More episodes