In a cost-cutting measure, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is planning to cancel the Distiller Co-Products for Feed Survey announced in March slated to be done in January 2012. The report, which was designed to better calculate the use of the ethanol co-product known as DDGS in livestock feed, is one of several that USDA plans to eliminate or reduce in light of funding reductions for the current fiscal year and expected reductions in FY 2012.

“We were very disappointed to hear the survey is being cancelled,” said Geoff Cooper with the Renewable Fuels Association. “NASS staff had prepared an excellent survey that was set to go out to thousands of livestock and poultry feeders in January 2012. Pulling the plug on this survey means many of the questions about how co-products are actually being used in the real world will remain unanswered. The feed industry, ethanol producers, and regulators alike desperately need the type of information this survey would have provided.”

NASS conducted a limited survey of DDGS use in 2007, funded by the Nebraska Corn Board, this report was anticipated to be much more comprehensive in scope. A Federal Register notice regarding the NASS program changes is expected to be published soon.