This is an excellent example of how basic research in agriculture becomes a marketable product. PLA can be used in a wide variety of consumer products and will be competitive based on its performance and price. This technology will also have a significant impact on corn demand. This is one example of a project from a broader program based on using renewable resources from agriculture to produce a wide variety of chemical building blocks. These programs benefit growers by providing stable, high value markets for their corn and they benefit all of us by providing a renewable source of consumer goods to supplement our petroleum supplies.
Experience shows that farmers are ready to accept the challenge of new value-added opportunities.
Today there are no fewer than 22 farmer-owner cooperatives with more than 800,000 members producing in excess of 450 million gallons of ethanol annually. Farmer-owned cooperatives have been the fastest growing segment of the fuel ethanol industry because of the policy environment that sets the rules of the market. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 established the reformulated gasoline and oxygenated fuels programs. These programs have grown to represent about 40-percent of the ethanol industry's total annual production. In 1998, Congress reaffirmed its commitment to farmers and the ethanol industry by extending the ethanol excise tax exemption through 2007.