US farm economy revs ups ethanol-fueled engines

The burgeoning ethanol industry is changing the economic landscape of rural America, as companies pour billions of dollars into production plants in a race to meet demand and ease America?s addiction to gasoline.

Ethanol backers foresee vast vistas of corn fields churning out feedstock for the clean burning fuel additive running millions of cars in the United States, the world?s largest consumer of energy.

?Ethanol is a tremendous economic engine for rural communities, it results in good paying jobs. You hear stories about opening up new gas stations and businesses taking off the boards from windows on main street,? said Matt Hartwig of Renewable Fuels Association.

He said the industry helped create more than 153 000 jobs last year, boosting US household income by $5.7 billion.

?There are 97 ethanol plants on line now in the United States with a capacity of about 4.5 billion gallons and there are 35 under construction and will be on line in the next year or 18 months so we?ll be looking at an additional 2.2 billion gallons,? Hartwig said.

ADM?s board has plans to build a dry corn milling plant to produce 275 million gallons of ethanol a year in Columbus, Nebraska, next to its existing ethanol plant.

The US Department of Agriculture has estimated that the amount of corn used to produce ethanol will jump from the 1.6 billion bushels this year to 2.0 billion next year or nearly 20 percent of the annual corn output.

Last year, US ethanol production reached a record 3.9 billion gallons, according to the U.S. Energy Department and there are projections that by the end of 2007 ethanol production could be over 5.2 billion gallons.

Grassroots supporters of ethanol claim US producers can churn out enough green fuel alone, whether from corn or other bio-mass products such as switchgrass.

Demand for ethanol may someday outpace the ability of farmers to produce corn. That scenario stirs visions of a nation dependent on switchgrass as the key feedstock for ethanol plants.

Parma prosecutors ends probe on JP Morgan

Parma prosecutors have completed an investigation into the role that US bank JP Morgan Chase might have played in the 2003 collapse of Italy?s Parmalat, judicial sources said yesterday.

The investigation is one of many being conducted into the dairy group?s demise under billions of euros of debt in 2003.

After an investigation is completed, prosecutors must decide whether to ask a judge to order the suspects to stand trial.

Prosecutors put three of the bank?s managers, including Italian senior country officer Federico Imbert, under investigation for possible fraudulent bankruptcy.

The other two are Gabriele Schiavi, formerly with Chase Manhattan which became part of JP Morgan Chase, and Alessandro Mitrovich, former Italian country head for Chase Manhattan..

A JP Morgan Chase spokeswoman in Italy said the bank was confident its managers had acted appropriately in their dealings with the food group, and that it intended to defend them.

Parma prosecutors have fo-cused their probe on specific bond placements between 1997 and 2001. JP Morgan was one the banks selling Parmalat bonds.

JP Morgan Chase is also one of four global banks involved in a separate Milan trial over Parmalat.