Ground Broken for Corn-to-Plastics Plant

May 2, 2000

Cargill Dow is building a manufacturing facility at Blair, NE, to make plastics and natural-synthetic fibers from corn. The facility will use 40,000 bushels of corn per day for an annual use of 14 million bushels.

Jim Stoppert, president and CEO of Cargill Dow, said the combination of Cargill’s expertise and Dow’s industry position "will yield important new products for consumers and will open an important market for corn growers." The new facility "opens the door to the possibility of other price-competitive consumer products made from renewable resources such as corn. The potential for consumer goods could eventually lead to demand for another 500 million bushels."

National Corn Growers Association President-elect Lee Klein of Battle Creek, NE, said checkoff money was used to help fund the research that led to the new facility. The plant will turn corn into polymers, small chips or pellets of plastic-like material that manufacturers then will process into fabrics for clothing and plastics for cups, food containers, packaging and home and office furnishing such as carpets.

"Besides encouraging Cargill and helping the company seek funding through Department of Commerce grants, NCGA invested checkoff dollars from farmers to fund basic research to get things going," said Klein.