POET produces 10 billion pounds of animal feed per year through dried distillers’ grains with solubles (DDGS), but a new USDA study shows that DDGS replace a much larger proportion of corn and soybean meal in feed markets.
It’s an often-overlooked fact that ethanol production uses only the starch portion of the corn kernel, leaving the protein-rich portion for animal feed through DDGS.
A USDA study released this month titled “Estimating the Substitution of Distillers’ Grains for Corn and Soybean Meal in the U.S. Feed Complex,” found that pound for pound, DDGS are more nutritious than corn
“Findings demonstrate that, in aggregate (including major types of livestock/poultry), a metric ton of DDGS can replace, on average, 1.22 metric tons of feed consisting of corn and soybean meal in the United States.”
When you hear that “ethanol uses 40% of the corn crop,” it’s not accounting for that return of animal feed. About 40% of that corn used for ethanol goes right to livestock.
Another interesting point is that more DDGS are being used to replace soybean meal. Whereas the corn used for ethanol is not edible for humans, soybeans are. In a sense, DDGS are replacing edible food with inedible (to humans) feed. That actually frees up soybeans for human consumption.


