About 33 Mo-Kan NAMA members and guests attended the December meeting at the Hereford House in Kansas City, Mo., on December 12. The featured speaker was Greg Krissek, Director of Government Affairs for ICM Inc., and a member of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC).

Krissek discussed the U.S. ethanol industry and stated that in 2006 ethanol used about 18 percent of the U.S. corn crop. In 2007-2008, the U.S. is expected to have capacity to produce 8.2 billion gallons of ethanol, which would account for about 30 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

Krissek also discussed the work of EPIC, which is a checkoff organization of ethanol plants used for promotion. It is a non-profit alliance of ethanol industry leaders. In part, due to the efforts of EPIC, consumer acceptance of ethanol has increase 9 percent from 2005 to 2006.