A senior agricultural partner with Ospraie AG Science, Carl Casale seeks out strategies for sustainable food production that enable farmers to reduce their environmental impact. Carl Casale previously led CHS, Inc., as CEO and oversaw strategy at the country’s leading member-owned cooperative, with a focus on grains, energy, and food.
A June 2021 CHS article brought focus to the ethanol industry’s moves to regain market share following the pandemic. With approximately 40 percent of US-produced corn earmarked for renewable fuel production, the shutdown of large swathes of America’s economy in 2020 had a major impact.
One major way that CHS was able to weather the impact of ethanol demand cratering was through continued exports of distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS). This ethanol production byproduct is used in countries such as South Korea, Mexico, and Vietnam. Through selling DDGS, a pair of Minnesota ethanol plants that would otherwise have shuttered were able to continue operations and position themselves for the recovering ethanol demand in late 2020. With prices rising by the end of the year, led by demand in diverse regions of the globe, including China, farmers could once again obtain a sustainable price for their corn.