PHILADELPHIA — Governors from the coal fields of West Virginia to the corn fields of Iowa talked yesterday at their summer meeting about moving beyond ethanol produced just from food sources.

They sometimes have different priorities in reaching this conclusion — priorities that can be as simple as who grows corn and who feeds it to livestock.

And they’re also not talking about replacement so much as supplementing: using switchgrass or wood waste products, for example, along with corn.

Still, the conversation — including an energy forum yesterday — has big implications. The nation has 134 ethanol plants in 26 states with 77 more under construction or expanding, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for the ethanol industry.

This year’s corn crop, expected to be a record, is worth about $52 billion.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department says economic growth in developing countries, tight global grain supplies, and demand for ethanol have pushed corn prices to record or near-record prices.

That in turn has led some to blame the push for ethanol on high food prices. Disagreeing sharply, the ethanol industry and corn growers point the finger at record fuel prices driving up the cost of growing and shipping food.

“Corn-based and commodities-based ethanol for states like Minnesota has been a success story,” the state’s governor, Tim Pawlenty, said.

“But we recognize that this has to now move to phase two,” he said.

Mr. Pawlenty was among about half the nation’s governors who gathered for the summer meeting, where clean and renewable energy is the top official topic.

Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, launched “Securing a Clean Energy Future” when he took the reins of the National Governors Association last year as the group’s chairman, a one-year post.

The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, raised the stakes in the debate in April when he asked the Environmental Protection Agency to cut by half a requirement in last year’s energy law to produce 9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008 for blending into gasoline.

Mr. Perry and other opponents of the requirement say the push to turn more corn into ethanol is raising food prices and the cost of feed for livestock.

The EPA hasn’t acted on Perry’s request and the Energy Department isn’t thrilled about it, saying it would slow investment in biofuel technology.

Several Republican lawmakers — but no other governors — have signed onto Perry’s request.