Iowa plants to offer farmers cash for corn cobs

Associated Press
By LUKE MEREDITH (AP) – July 16, 2009

DES MOINES, Iowa — Two new technologies offer the promise that corn growers could turn their cobs into cash.

Cobs, the refuse left behind after harvest, are now plowed back into fields. But companies from California and South Dakota plan to start changing that by building two plants in Iowa, one to turn the material into ethanol and another to produce fertilizer.

"We're excited about it," corn farmer Jim Boyer said, "that there's an opportunity for another profit stream off our farm."

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