Iowa remains the country’s number-one ethanol producer. The state’s 43 ethanol plants hit a production record in 2018, surpassing the record reached in 2017. Cassidy Walter, spokeswoman for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says difficulties in trading with China, other nations are buying many millions of gallons of the corn-based fuel from Iowa.

Walter says Iowa’s ethanol producers have been able to succeed with production, despite reports of idled and even shuttered plants in other states. Iowa’s ethanol plants produce about 27-percent of all ethanol made in the U-S.