“This has been a challenging year.  We’ve seen significant movement in the corn market—and, overall, gasoline prices have gone all over the place,” says DTN ethanol analyst Rick Kment, “and there’s so many concerns, both in the ag markets and the other general financial markets—that has really significantly impacted the ethanol market.”

And then there’s the tightness in old crop corn supplies, which could lead to rationing of corn—and higher corn prices—this summer. 

A recent analysis from the University of Illinois estimated that, on average, ethanol plants will not be able to pay more than $6.75 per bushel for corn this summer without running in the red and risk having to idle their facilities.

Kment doesn’t look for an industry-wide shutdown—but he says many plants may have to throttle down on production.

AUDIO: Rick Kment (8:07 MP3)

But Vilsack says changing report release times is not as simple as it sounds.

“A decision as to timing and information being accessible can potentially make the difference of millions of dollars, one way or the other, to those who are trading,” Vilsack says, “and now we have essentially two competing entities that have different hours that don’t necessarily align.”

Those competing entities are the CME Group and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which recently expanded its trading in grain futures. 

The Kansas City Board of Trade and MGEX, formerly the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, have followed suit and expanded their trading hours as well.

Vilsack made his comments during a conference call with reporters this week.

AUDIO: Tom Vilsack (1:58 MP3)

“Many of Iowa’s roads and bridges are in need of significant structural improvements, and we continue to fall further behind every year.  Clearly, this problem will not go away without additional funding; that’s why Farm Bureau members have identified a fuel tax increase as the most equitable, feasible funding method,” says Hill.

Hill discussed that topic and other state legislative issues in a recent interview with Brownfield’s Ken Anderson.

AUDIO: Craig Hill (4:57 MP3)

The new trading hours are from 5 p.m. to 2 p.m. Central time, Sunday through Friday.  They went into effect this past Sunday.

ASA president Steve Wellman of Syracuse, Nebraska tells Brownfield there is still confusion about how the expanded trading hours will coexist with the release of USDA reports on grains and oilseeds.

“Having the major USDA reports released during trade hours, I think, does open up possibly having inaccurate price discovery happening during trading,” says Wellman.

Another concern, Wellman says, is that there is already unequal access to USDA information based on differing Internet capacity across the country and around the world.   He says differing abilities to place orders in reaction to reports released during trading hours will create, what he calls, “inequitable opportunities for market participants”.

AUDIO: Steve Wellman (3:51 MP3)

AUDIO: Craig Hill (4:57 MP3)