Economic analysis of harvesting corn cobs for biofuel production

Cellulosic biofuels may be on the brink of commercial production. Corn residues are one source that has been evaluated by several researchers. However, another resource would be just the corn cobs, and little work has been done on cobs alone. This research analyzes the per ton payment farmers need to receive in order to harvest cobs. To achieve the economics from the farmer\u27s perspective, two focus groups and a questionnaire were mailed to seven Minnesota farmers harvesting cobs during the 2009 harvest. The data from these farmers was used to modify PC-LP and was applied to the data from 55 Midwestern farms taken from the 2009 Top Crop Farmer Workshop held at Purdue University. The linear programming model, B-21 PC-LP, was used to optimize the limited land, labor, and resources from each of the 55 farms with the addition of the corn plus cob enterprise. Results indicate that farmers generally must receive $100 per ton in order to become serious about harvesting cobs during the harvest. One reason for the high per ton payment is the $28,000 lease for the cob wagon. This created a barrier to entry to smaller farms trying to harvest cobs. It was evident that farms larger than 2000 corn acres were better able to offset the necessary costs associated with harvesting cobs. Sensitivity analysis was done on key factors of harvest working rate, a reduced wagon cost of $14,000, and a decrease in the amount of cobs in the stover. Finally, we estimated total costs for cobs with a 17 percent unexpected corn yield shock on five farms from PC-LP. The analysis was done for five farms of different sizes and operating characteristics and resulted in a $6-$8 per ton increase in the cob cost. The major conclusion of this research is that the cob price required to induce a significant amount of cob harvest is much higher than previously thought – around $100 per ton