Corn harvest looks large, thanks to ethanol demand

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Waiting to unload corn at a grain elevator this week, Kyle Winkelmann took a few minutes to marvel at how rain had fallen on his central Illinois fields at just right times this season.

Before he could finish talking, though, Winkelmann was headed back to his fields near Tallula, a dozen miles northwest of Springfield, trying to keep up with the combines.

"I keep hauling corn and hauling corn and hauling corn and never get anywhere, you know?" Winkelmann joked during a phone conversation.

That's because there's a lot of corn in his fields, and in others all over the Midwest.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday raised its already-high expectations for the crop to 13.3 billion bushels, which would be an all-time high and 27 percent more than last year's 10.5 billion bushels.

Farmers planted so much corn -- 92.9 million acres, almost 20 percent more than last year -- to meet the demand for the fuel additive ethanol. And economists say the diversion of corn from livestock and poultry feed is likely to drive up food prices for at least a few years.

It will be several more weeks before the harvest ends and the country knows how farmers fared during the first big year of what they hope is an ethanol boom.

Ethanol demand has increased rapidly the past few years with increases in gasoline prices and calls for alternatives to oil-based fuels. Grain farmers in turn increasingly see corn as a moneymaker.

"If this ethanol takes off like it could, the price of corn's gonna be really good for a few years," Winkelmann said.