Charles City, IA- The 2009 corn harvest is nearly complete for most North Iowa farmers.
For the first time, producers in the Charles City area are bringing in their crops to an ethanol plant that once hurt them.
Vera Sun Energy went bankrupt about one year ago. The company left thousands of farmers holding contracts to sell their corn at double today’s market price.
Erwin Johnson says he's experiencing one of his toughest harvests.
"We had a combination of a really wet October, record rainfall, I believe you know and the corn and the soybeans, nothing would mature it wouldn't dry down," he said.
He says weather causing problems during the harvest is expected, but trouble caused by humans is harder to understand.
He's one of hundreds of producers who lost thousands to Vera Sun.
He had doubts about the new plant owner Valero Renewable Fuels.
"You get your fingers burnt by putting them on a hot stove you don't turn around and put them back on it again," he said.
He says knowing Valero is the largest refiner of gasoline in the country helps ease his worries.
"You gotta feel better that you got somebody like that you're dealing with that's not just depending on the ethanol profitability for their existence," he said.
Valero has also worked to build relationships with farmers like him.
"They've actually taken corn a little wetter than normal because they knew the farmers were having trouble getting the gas we needed to go somewhere with the corn," he said.
Despite the soggy delays, Johnson says this year's crop may be one of the area's best. Thanks to the ethanol industry the price of corn remains strong.
"The demand for corn that the ethanol business has created here in Northern Iowa has just been a tremendous boom, a tremendous benefit for we farmer producers."
That's why he's hoping Valero continues its success.
"In a year or two we'll probably forgotten about what has happened in the past with vera sun and we'll just be moving forward."
Johnson is selling about one third of his corn crop to Valero. He says some farmers are protecting themselves from events similar to the Vera Sun bankruptcy by selling corn just to their local grain elevators.
