Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
Dave Craigmile’s entry into full-time farming permanently set his gaze on the water gauge—he took over the family farm in Boyd in 1976, the year of the worst drought in Minnesota agricultural history.
So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Craigmile took up the gauntlet thrown down by a series on water quality and the Minnesota River that appeared in the Mankato Free Press last December. He worked with staff at Minnesota Corn Growers Association to develop an article that expresses the view Craigmile shares with many Minnesota crop and livestock producers: conservation is a way of life, and care for the future of our land, water and air is second nature to every farmer he knows. It’s what farmers practice every day.
His piece, “My View: For farmers, conservation is key” appeared in the January 10 edition of the daily newspaper. It has been published in a longer form in a journal called The Land.
“I wanted to offer a bigger picture,” Craigmile said about his decision to respond the newspaper series. “They are portraying farmers as being downright greedy with no care for the land, or for the future. The truth is that ever since the land was homesteaded by our forefathers, farmers have been very concerned. No farmer that I know of wants to see their topsoil washed down the Minnesota River or any of their fertilizer get away from them. We all use pesticides or herbicides that have been through thorough checks and balances at the US Environmental Protection Agency. Most of the time we even shorten up and use less than the label rate. Seldom do people use over label rates. Farmers are not using products willy-nilly with the idea of making more money—that doesn’t work.”
Craigmile emphasizes that he is far from a lone dissenter among crop and livestock farmers.
He wrote in his article: “I’d like to point out that I’m not the only conservation-minded corn farmer. The majority of corn growers in Minnesota are employing some form of soil conservation, whether it’s reduced tillage, strip tillage or grassy buffer zones between fields and feeder streams. Farmers have learned to ‘farm the best and buffer the rest.’”
Craigmile thinks the love and concern for the water and the natural world comes naturally to farmers, many of whom who had the experience of going to a country school. His early memories of walking through the swale at the edge of their farm property, about a third of a mile, to get to school each day are full of happy memories about discovering nature. Before and after school, along with all the other kids, he searched the ditch that ran in back of the school for frogs and minnows.
One of the key points of information Craigmile wants to get out to the general public is a correction of the impression that farm drainage is wantonly destructive.
“People seem to think tile drain systems on farms are like pulling the plug in your sink or pushing the lever on the toilet—just press it and the field just flushes the water away,” Craigmile said. “That’s not at all the case—all of these systems have a coefficient of drainage—and it’s rarely over a half inch. The Natural Resources Conservation Service developed this coefficient specifically for conditions in Minnesota. A half-inch coefficient means that if you had a six-inch rain, say from a Spring flood, it would take 12 days for that rain to runoff into the water shed. In combination with conservation cultivation techniques, these systems mean les soil and chemicals are carried into ditches and streams.”
Like many farmers, Craigmile has been putting time and energy into his conservation ethic—going beyond implementing practices on his own farm, and going the next steps of serving on advisory committees and boards. He has served on TMDL (total maximum daily load) advisory committees for both the Pollution Control Agency’s work on the Minnesota River, and his local watershed district, the Lac qui Parle Yellow Bank Watershed District. He has also served on water quality issue committees for Minnesota Farm Bureau and Minnesota Agricultural Water Resources Center. He has also put more than a decade of service into the Lac qui Parle County Planning and Zoning Commission.
“I have a deep respect for water,” said Craigmile. “We live and farm in area where the water resources are challenged. There’s no beneficial interest to the farmer for screwing up our groundwater or our lakes and streams. Lots of farmers have lake property. We are all part of it. We’re all in it together. We are going to do our part. I would never say agriculture doesn’t have an impact on water but I would say that farming’s impact is, for the most part, unintentional. We are all involved. I like to tell people that none of us can drink a glass of water without impacting water quality. The minute we begin planning and using this resource we change it. Our medications are ending up in the water courses and may end up being a far more negative stressor than nitrogen. Humans have modified the landscape. We need to respect each other and work together and see what can be done.”
See Craigmile’s article in full at http://mankatofreepress.com/letters/x2145130755/My-View-For-farmers-conservation-is-key
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
It’s a combination of climate, soils and farmer know-how—corn likes to grow in Minnesota.
Numbers released last week by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA) offer the final picture for the 2011 crop year in its Crop Production 2011 Summary. These data show there are few places that do corn better than Minnesota.
2011 had all the attributes that keep farmers lying awake at night—a long, wet spring with little real heat until July, storms with high winds afflicting plants before they could even pollinate and finally an early frost. Still and all, Minnesota’s 157 bushels per acre average yield put it in close contention with the top producing states: Iowa (172), Nebraska (Many of these acres are irrigated—160), Ohio (158) and Illinois (157). These compare to the national yield of 147.2 bushels per acre.
Even with all the weather challenges, Minnesota corn producers brought in 1.2 billion bushels of corn in 2011. With strong commodity prices this has brought a welcome shot in the arm as the state and nation still struggle with a sluggish economy.
The most telling data point about how well suited the corn crop is to the growing conditions and agronomic practices on Minnesota farms is plant populations. Using random scientific sampling, NASS-USDA looks at places in 10 of the top corn producing states and estimates average plant populations per acre. The 29,350 corn plants per acre in Minnesota is topped by only two states–30,050 plants per acre in Iowa and 29,600 in Illinois. Minnesota even beats Nebraska’s irrigated acres, hands down, where they raise 26,800 plants per acre.
Other important dimensions of this year’s corn crop in Minnesota: Minnesota farmers planted 8.1 million acres of corn and harvested 7.7 million of those acres. Corn represented 41 percent of the state’s planted crop acres and just under 40 percent of all harvested acres last year. By area, Minnesota corn acres represented 9 percent of the nation’s crop. By volume, Minnesota’s 1.2 billion bushels represents 9.7 percent of total corn production for last year in the United States.
Here is the NASS-USDA summary of 2011 corn production nationwide:
Corn for grain production is estimated at 12.4 billion bushels, up slightly from the November 1 forecast but 1 percent below 2010. The average yield in the United States for 2011 is estimated at 147.2 bushels per acre. This is up 0.5 bushel from the November forecast but 5.6 bushels below the 2010 average yield of 152.8 bushels. Area harvested for grain is estimated at 84.0 million acres, up slightly from the November forecast and up 3 percent from 2010.
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
The Near-Channel Sediment Source Management Forum on January 4 in North Mankato brought together about 250 people who share a common concern for the future of the Minnesota River and water quality across the state.
About forty of those in attendance were farmers. Farmer-supported research shows that stream-bank erosion, or “near-channel” sources produce the majority of sediment that clouds Minnesota’s rivers.
“People used to think that 70 to 80 percent of sediment came off crop land—but Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council research on stream banks shows the farm land number is closer to 25 percent, and most of the rest comes from stream banks,” said Bruce Peterson, a farmer in Northfield who attended the forum. Peterson serves as secretary for Minnesota Corn Growers Association. Peterson said, “As farmers, we know it’s still important to learn how to reduce that 25 percent. The critical question becomes how can we reduce the amount water that leaves the farm. By the time it makes it to the river, we found out how that can have an impact—gully formation and so forth.
Farmers and landowners of every sort have developed ways to send excess water away from their land—whether it is tile drainage on farms or sump systems for basements of homes and commercial properties. Developing means of increasing water storage on the land, before the water enters streams and rivers, may be a method to reduce stream bank erosion, several of the day’s presenters said.
“Farmers tend to get a bad rap for tile drainage, but the reason farmers do it is that they know well-drained soils produce healthier crops,” Peterson observed. “This in turn produces more crop residue, which counters the impact, somewhat, of water leaving ag land—the residue slows the water down and allows sediment to drop out.”
Research on water storage and engineered treatments for banks show promise for reducing loss of soil into watercourses. Rain gardens, holding ponds and other methods of water retention are gaining wider spread use.
“Developers in the urban and suburban areas, farmers, non-farmers in rural areas—we all need to work together to reduce the impacts on the land,” said Peterson. “One single corrective action won’t change our sediment problems overnight, but lots of us making small changes could have an impact.”
Riley Maanum, Research & Project Manager at MCGA, said one important outcome of a meeting like this was how it brings together farmers with the government officials who can work most closely with them on solutions.
“The fixes that can go on at the farm are going to happen through the local Soil and Water Conservation district offices and the Natural Resource Conservation Service,” said Maanum. A lot of folks from these agencies were at the forum—we want to communicate to them that farmers are willing to work with them. Farmers want to do the right thing. We are moving forward and we have been moving forward since agriculture started. We don’t farm the same as we did last year, because we are always learning new things.”
The series of speakers represented divergent viewpoints, and was important for these scientists and researchers to interact, Peterson felt. Sorting out the options may still point to tough choices, but ones that could be made with full, scientific research to back them up. One of the speakers talked about different management options for some of the steep ravines and banks along the river. One of his conclusions, Peterson noted, was that, instead of trying to stabilize banks, it would be cheaper to move the channel of the river. This though, could involve loss of valuable land to individual property owners, or the need to move homes or buildings to make way for a better water channel placement.
“Our voice was heard loud and clear at the forum,” Maanum said. “It’s not that we wanted to argue about anything. We want to be at the table.”
Filed under: Ethanol
(Published by Des Moines Register, Dec. 31, 2011. Article written by Dan Piller)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last Tuesday said ethanol production in 2012 should reach 15.2 billion gallons, an increase of about 1.25 billion gallons from this year.
The agency’s 2012 targets for renewable biofuels, however, shows non-corn ethanol made from crop residue, grasses or wood chips falling short of the goals set in the 2007 federal law mandating biofuel use.
In a statement, the EPA projects that cellulosic ethanol will hit 8.65 million gallons, or 0.06 percent of the 15.2 billion gallon total. That is considerably short of the 500-million-gallon target for 2012 set by Congress in 2007 when it wrote the law mandating that 36 billion gallons of non-petroleum biofuels be used in the nation’s transportation fuel mix by 2022.
Our Take:
For enemies of ethanol this cellulosic shortfall is the loose thread they will try to pick at to unravel the whole Renewable Fuels Standard—therefore grain ethanol has a stake in the success of cellulose ethanol. Here in Minnesota, cellulose ethanol represents a huge opportunity for both the agriculture and forestry sectors—another way to create a value added product here rather than shipping our dollars out of state for energy, or shipping our raw products so that others can make money and jobs by adding value to them.
Cellulosic ethanol’s success—it could succeed in non-farm regions of the US—would help broaden the political support for biofuels in general.
In answer to RFS critics, the elected leaders of both parties that passed RFS in 2007 did not have a crystal ball and the one thing they could not anticipate happening in 2008 was the worst economic conditions for launching new businesses in nearly a century. Venture capital for the promising new ethanol technology was non-existent and the advent of the Great Recession put cellulose ethanol at least 24 months behind what could have been reasonably expected, if economic conditions had remained stable in 2008 and 2009.
We would like to go on to illustrate how a clever reporter can still be completely off-base in his depiction of ethanol:
Piller writes: “Corn-fed ethanol, which uses century-old manufacturing techniques and enjoys a ready supply of feedstock in the Midwest, has gotten off to a fast start and now constitutes 10 percent of the nation’s gasoline supply.”
Our Take: The only thing accurate in that paragraph is that ethanol is now 10 percent of the national gasoline supply. To say ethanol uses century-old technology because it is distilled alcohol (actually, distillation is approaching 2,000 years old, as a chemical process) would be like saying that automobiles and airplanes use technology that’s a century old. We don’t know what Piller considers a fast start, but ethanol was a vision among the founders of Minnesota Corn Growers Association when they organized in 1978. It wasn’t until 2005 that a national renewable fuels standard passed congress, and it took another two years to reset it to its current requirements: that’s got to be the slowest overnight success in the history of business, and it represents the dogged, uphill battle of small independent farmers against Big Oil and Big Food that continues today. As much as Cargill and ADM benefit from RFS, they were not the elbow grease that got ‘er done. It was farmers.
Piller continues: “In 2011 an estimated 13.8 billion gallons of ethanol were produced, 3.7 billion gallons of it at 41 plants in Iowa. Ethanol production now consumes 5 billion bushels of the 12.4-billion-bushel U.S. corn crop.”
Our Take: How can the newspaper of record in the largest ethanol producing state, Iowa, at this late date, continue to fail to mention distillers grains animal feed. A full third of the raw grain feedstock used to make ethanol returns to the livestock industry in the form or a high protein, high energy, high quality feed.
Piller writes: “The Iowa ethanol industry now takes in about $15 billion in revenues and employs about 2,000 workers at the plants and is credited with an equal number of maintenance and transportation jobs.”
Our Take: We believe Pillar underestimates the jobs impact of ethanol by at least half. To say ethanol in Iowa supports only 4,000 jobs would be like saying that farming in Minnesota supports only farmers. The fact is, renewable energy has become a cornerstone of the rural economy and the economy as a whole. Urban manufacturing jobs with companies like John Deere depend on the strong farm economy built on crops, livestock and energy production. Take any one of these away and the job losses would spread far beyond the farm gate. The Renewable Fuels Association has estimated that the 200 ethanol plants in America have an ultimate economic reach that supports 400,000 jobs.
Piller writes: “So established is corn-fed ethanol that the industry allowed the expiration of the 45 cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol production, as well as the 54-cent fee on ethanol imports, to lapse at the end of this year, preferring to fall back on defense of the Renewable Fuel Standard set in the 2007 law.”
Our Take: It’s a bit flattering to be depicted as having even a plebiscite, yes-no vote on keeping the tax credit and tariff. Fact is, the relatively small biofuels industry was no match for a Congress looking for places to balance the budget. We would have preferred to keep these incentives in place to help secure market space for our product. It’s simply a matter of having a level playing field. We notice that Congress left the $30-plus billion dollars of oil industry incentives alone—that’s five times what Americans paid to underwrite ethanol.
If you want to read the full text of the Des Moines Register article, and perhaps rebut some of its inaccuracies, we encourage you to do so. Go to:
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
“It’s a very exciting time in the corn industry—there are so many value-added opportunities, in ethanol, in feed sources for livestock and other products—We have to make the most of today’s exciting opportunities on behalf of the farmer,” said Mitch Coulter, who joined the staff of Minnesota Corn Growers Association on December 19, as its new research program manager.
Coulter comes to MCGA with a dozen years experience in sales and consulting positions in agribusiness. Most recently he has worked as a consultant who trained the sales force and worked to expand the sales territory for AgTrax Technologies, a Hutchinson, Kansas-based agribusiness software solutions company.
Before that, he spent five years in sales and marketing for AgTrax, and previously worked for John Deere Agri services, in its special technologies department.
“Mitch has an energy and a breadth of experience that will make him a great asset for Minnesota’s corn organizations. He has worked one-on-one with farmers, and developed relationships with agribusinesses of every size and description,” said Chad Willis, a farmer in Willmar and chairman of Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council.
Research program manager is a new staff position. Coulter will direct the work of the Food and Bioenergy Team and the Expanded Uses Team for the Minnesota corn organizations.
“Right now, we are accepting research project proposals and I will be working to package the information and present it to Minnesota Corn Growers Association’s board and Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council, to help these professional farmers assess where the best investment of check-off fund dollars would be,” said Coulter.
Coulter, 34, grew up on a farm in Maynard, Minnesota, and continues to take an active role when he can, in family farms that raise corn, soybeans, wheat and sugar beets.
He graduated from South Dakota State University in 1999 with a BS in agriculture. He double majored in agronomy and horticulture.
“The opportunity to be able to help farmers grow their business is one of the main reasons I’ve taken this position,” said Coulter. “It’s an exciting time for corn farmers. Corn production has grown, the acres in corn have grown. There is a lot of opportunity for corn farmers and it’s a good place to be.”
These directives will be presented for approval at MCGA annual meeting
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
As a grassroots farmer organization, Minnesota Corn Growers Association undertook one of its most vital functions at the recent Pre-resolutions meeting in Morton, where 66 delegates representing 27 local corn grower organizations gathered to craft language to express the direction MCGA will take in the coming year on the issues that impact farmers the most.
Resolutions ranged in topic from mundane details of the tax code, to the cutting edge of research based on the genetic code of corn.
The resolutions accepted by the group will be presented for a vote by all delegates to the MCGA Annual meeting which takes place in mid-January, during MN Ag EXPO. There is a change of venue for EXPO this year. The annual meeting, educational sessions and trade show will take place Monday and Tuesday, January 23 and 24, at the Verizon Wireless Center in Mankato.
A number of resolutions recognize the fact that change is coming to government ethanol programs, both on the national and state levels. Funding programs are sunsetting, and the farmer delegates responded by creating resolutions to encourage the US Congress and Minnesota Legislature to consider reinvesting those funds into other means of supporting alternative energy, or other important means for assuring the prosperity of farmers and rural communities. One resolution called for the federal government to move E85 into the same tax program with alternative fuels based on propane and hydrogen, which both receive a 50 cent per gallon tax credit. With the sunset of Minnesota’s Small Ethanol Producer credit, another MCGA resolution urges the state to consider keeping those funds rural in focus.
Land acquisitions by state and local government units raised concerns among county groups this year. Delegates proposed resolutions that require government to have a management plan that includes dedicated funds whenever it acquires land, and further that fund be provided to offset losses to local tax base when private land is made public. Another resolution proposed that land acquisitions financed by Legacy State Sales Tax funds be limited to no net gain, to assure the government will not become an unwieldy competitor in the land market, which is already seeing major price spikes.
Another resolution focuses on rationalizing the state/federal approach to wetlands by creating wetlands mitigation banking that focuses on agricultural land use, making it easier for farmers to develop sensible plans for using their land while maintaining the net acreage and quality of wetlands in the state.
Looking closely into state tax code, one resolution proposed reinstatement of the state homestead tax credit for farm production land and farm sites. The resolution spotlights the bind this may place some counties in, of having to choose to raise other property taxes or cut services.
Science and research are seen as a fundamental ingredient to continued farmer prosperity, and so a resolution focused on corn genomics. Now that the genome map has been completed, MCGA should advocate for publicly-funded research based on genomics and phenotypic data, to improve the agronomic performance of the corn plant.
In applied science that comes even closer to the farm, a resolution notes the rise of certain technologies that may interfere with global positioning satellite data. Given the growing reliance on GPS data in order to operate machinery and deliver inputs with greater and greater precision, the resolution calls for opposition to such technologies that interfere with GPS.
These and other new resolutions will be voted on, and those approved will be added to the MCGA policy book. Those resolutions of a national character will be brought forward to the National Corn Growers Association policy and priority meeting in January, and receive full consideration by the national delegates in early March at the Commodity Classic agricultural conference and trade show.
Howard G. Buffett, the middle son of Warren Buffett, is his father’s first choice to succeed him as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, perhaps the world’s wealthiest holding company, with billions in its portfolio and NYSE shares running in excess of $100,000 a piece.
Howard Buffett appeared on last week’s episode of the CBS news magazine show Sixty Minutes. His qualifications to run Berkshire Hathaway? Is he a boardroom whiz kid and stock picker extraordinaire like his father? No, as reporter Leslie Stahl explains, “Howie” is a corn and beans farmer who works 1500 acres near Decatur, Illinois, and who spends about $50 million a year (based on a $1 billion outlay from Warren for Howard’s foundation) on philanthropic efforts that focus on world hunger and lately, conservation methods in agriculture.
“He likes not only farming, he likes machines,” said Warren Buffett, describing how his son is different from himself. The segment shows Buffett driving his John Deere tractor, using his John Deere combine “no-hands” on autosteer and digging up a corn plant to examine its root system. Warren goes on to say that he wants Howard to be his successor at Berkshire Hathaway because one of Warren’s main worries is that the next one to run the company could abuse its wealth and make it into a personal kingdom, whereas Howard “would add a layer of protection against that…he knows the values of the business.”
When it comes to values, Warren was very careful in his approach to his family. As children Howard and his brother and sister never knew they were a wealthy family. When Howard was starting out in farming, Warren purchased land for his son for $300,000, but then he required Howard pay him rent, so that he would learn the real business, and appreciate its true worth.
The Sixty Minutes story spends some time explaining Howard Buffett’s charitable work, which focuses on farmer education in the third world. The program shows Howard visiting a couple who farm and raise corn in Honduras and have been improving their operation through participation in his educational program there. On his farm visit, just like a farmer or crop consultant here would do, he digs up a plant to look at the health of the root system, cracks an ear of corn in two, and after a thorough examination pronounces that the couple are doing a good job raising the crop. He insists that participants in his program learn accounting and purchase their own seed, in order to assure that even after their participation in the foundation’s program ends, the farmers will be able to continue to use their knowledge, and be independent, in order to prosper.
To view the Sixty Minutes profile of Howard G. Buffett, go to
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7391360n
Linder Farm Network Radio’s farm editor Linda Brekke recently interviewed
Tim Morse, director of travel management for the state of Minnesota, about the state’s impressive record of increasing use of ethanol and biodiesel. Morse not only serves as director of the state vehicle fleet, but he also directs the Smart Fleet Committee, charged with ensuring the growing Minnesota State Government’s use of renewable fuels to reduce dependence on petroleum—Minnesota has to import 100 percent of the oil-based energy it consumes.
Morse’s interview aired at noon on Thursday in the “Minnesota Corn Growers Association Update” segment, and it will be aired again this weekend.
Morse told the radio listeners: “The state has been moving away from petroleum and toward biofuel since 2005. The smartfleet group was put together with various state agencies including Natural Resources, Pollution Control, MNDoT, the Dept of Commerce and the American Lung Association (of the Upper Midwest). We have measured and tracked the usage of fuel with base year of 2005, when we used a little less than a hundred thousand gallons of fuel. This year we will be approaching a million gallons, so we are very happy about that.”
Brekke asked Morse to describe the State of Minnesota vehicle fleet.
“The state fleet includes about 3,000 vehicles that are capable of using E85 fuel,” said Morse. “We also have a significant portion of the state fleet that uses diesel, and so we are looking at using biodiesel as a biofuel. Our goal is to move away from petroleum and we have focused on both ethanol and biodiesel because they are renewable fuels, they are domestically produced and they are cleaner burning than petroleum fuels.”
Brekke noted, “Actually, Minnesota state fleet is number one in the USA when it comes to the percentage of E85 in use in its flex fuel vehicles.”
Tim replied: “We are very proud of the amount of ethanol fuel that we use in the fleet. I am not aware of any state that uses more ethanol than we do. As I said we are approaching a million gallons, and that is very close to 20 percent of the fuel used by our light duty fleet.”
Linda got a laugh out of Morse when she asked him about how he manages his lawn care at home.
Tim said, laughing: “That’s funny. I do have a John Deere diesel lawn tractor and I use 100 percent biodiesel in it whenever I can get it. We count the American Lung Association (of the Upper Midwest) as a valuable member of our partnership and they have been very helpful in ethanol stations, stations that are providing the E85 fuel. We have been working on getting flexible fuel vehicles into the fleet and they (ALAUM) have been working to make the stations available throughout the state.”
By Jonathan Eisenthal
It’s a three-pronged strategy to assure the strength and continuing growth of Minnesota’s biggest homegrown energy source, farm-based biofuels.
“We’re looking at promotional media efforts, educational projects for the schools and advocacy projects to fight for good energy policy in Saint Paul—with these three simultaneous approaches we’re aiming to make a positive impact on economic, environmental, educational and public policies regarding renewable, farm-based energy,” said Tim Rudnicki, who became executive director of the newly created Minnesota Biofuels Association on September 1.
At a billion gallons of annual production, employing 18,000 Minnesotans and bringing $6 billion dollars of economic activity each year, ethanol is a dynamic and important industry in Minnesota. And yet, it’s still plagued by public misperceptions and the potential for misinformation in the halls of the legislature is an ongoing risk. So the seven founding ethanol companies came together to create the Minnesota Biofuels Association to help ensure the future of ethanol and other biofuels in our state.
The eight producer members at this time are: Al-Corn Clean Fuel, Claremont; Central Minnesota Ethanol Coop, Little Falls; Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company, Benson; CornPlus, Winnebago; Granite Falls Energy, Granite Falls; Guardian Energy, Janesville; Heartland Corn Products, Winthrop; and Highwater Ethanol, Lamberton.
The organization plans to create new membership categories, to allow other organizations and individuals beyond the ethanol producers themselves to join MBA.
“When it comes to promotion we’re talking about raising awareness through advertising,” said Rudnicki. “We recently launched ads that are appearing in local theaters. The message is that we do have a solution to our energy needs in hand, available right here and right now. We don’t have to wait for some grand magic. We have this fuel now. Our 30-second ad features visual motion and music and a voice over and comes on as a leader before the previews begin. We’re running this in a pilot phase in Minneapolis, where we are expecting 80,000 to 100,000 impressions. Next, we are going to be launching some ad campaigns for radio around the beginning of the year. We are targeting both metro and rural areas, and we anticipate reaching 400,000 listeners a week.”
Rudnicki praised Minnesota Ag in The Classroom, a curriculum program from Minnesota Department of Agriculture, which has long received significant support from Minnesota Corn Growers Association. The Minnesota Bio-Fuels Associationplans to support further development of modules that offer the latest information about ethanol and biodiesel.
At the level of secondary education, it’s important to share with students the broad variety of jobs offered by Minnesota’s renewable energy sector. Rudnicki likes to give the example of a recent University of Minnesota-Morris graduate in biochemistry who is now employed in the research laboratory at an ethanol facility. She is working on cutting edge technology with the potential to increase the efficiency and yield of the ethanol process.
“You’ve got all these different positions on the production side, instrument technicians, maintenance workers, team leaders, microbiologists, controllers in these operations, plant managers, general managers, to mention just a few of the types of jobs ethanol creates,” said Rudnicki. “When people pass by an ethanol plant what do they see? We want to say there’s no need to guess what’s happening in there, we will inform you. Once we get our web site up and running we will be a clearing house, not just for what type of positions are out there, but a whole spectrum of information and resources – for the general public, for policy makers and for industry producers.”
Minnesota Biofuels Association will concentrate its efforts on creating a groundswell around the notion that consumers should have expanded fuel choice options that include E85 as well as E15 and E20.
“The old shorthand about what farmers produce is three Fs—food, fiber, fuel, but I add that four more have become a vital part of what farmers offer us: Freedom From Fossil Fuels,” said Rudnicki. “If people have the choice, why not feel good about what you are putting in your fuel tank. If consumers have the choice of using homegrown, renewable biofuel, or finite fossil fuel, I think most people would choose using more homegrown, renewable motor fuel.People would feel good about what they are doing for the environment by using clean burning fuel and feel good about what they are doing for the economy.”
Rudnicki comes to role of executive director at Minnesota Biofuels Association having spent the last 15 years as an energy and environmental attorney, during which time he focused on using the law and the legislative process to find solutions for clients. His specialty has been working on policy issues to promote homegrown, renewable energy. Rudnicki has served as executive director in previous advocacy, promotional and educational efforts launched by businesses and non-governmental organizations.
“For a long time it’s been my passion and what I have been talking about continually–seeing renewable energy as a solution to our economic, environmental and national security problems,” said Rudnicki. “So when this position at MBA became available, it was a perfect fit.”
Filed under: Ethanol
(article published by Reuters news service, By Carey Gillam)
(Reuters) – The U.S. biofuels industry has more than 14 billion gallons in annual production capacity for fuel ethanol, according to new industry and government data, but growth has hit a plateau and experts see steady but slow capacity growth going forward.
A government report issued Tuesday shows fuel ethanol industry maximum sustainable capacity at 193 plants capable of churning out 14.2 billion gallons a year or 929,000 barrels a day. The data, issued as a first-ever report by the Energy Information Administration, is nearly a year old, based on information as of January 1, 2011.
Still, data reported by the industry as of November 16 showed 209 plants producing about 14.2 billion gallons a year, less than the estimated capacity of 14.7 billion gallons.
“You’re essentially in the plateau stage of the ethanol boom,” said Linn Group analyst Jerrod Kitt. “There are a few expansion projects under way … but we’ve essentially boomed out. Now we are just tottering along.”
RFA spokesman Matt Hartwig said that the rate of expansion was slowing as the domestic market neared the saturation level and approached the mandate set by the Renewable Fuels Standard which requires oil companies to use 15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015.
An uptick in export demand is notable but not enough to drive the double-digit rates of expansion in capacity seen in past years, Hartwig said.
Neill McKinstray, vice president of The Andersons Inc ethanol division, said ethanol supply and demand are in balance and margins are strong.
Domestic demand is expected to slip in early 2012, however, and export demand likewise was seen softening, he said.
The vast majority of the U.S. ethanol refineries use corn as their feedstock. Corn prices have fluctuated sharply this year but have been in decline over the last several months.
A few plants also use barley, milo, sugarcane, beer, potato waste and wood waste. Some plants in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California use cheese whey.
“Corn ethanol is in good shape to meet demand,” said Jim Stark, a spokesman for Green Plains Renewable Energy, the fourth-largest U.S. ethanol producer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/us-usa-ethanol-production-idUSTRE7AS27P20111129
Our Take:
We lucked out, just in the nick of time. An unforeseen economic reality is making up for bad policy—just as we appear to be losing the blender’s credit, the strength of the world sugar market allows US ethanol producers to sell a small fraction of our production into the European Union, and even Brazil, where sugar is competing directly with its biofuels production.
This export market will provide the space for the continued build out of US ethanol production capacity—until such time that E15, as well as the increasing number of flexible fuel vehicles and fueling sites generate domestic demand for that new fuel production. This is our escape valve from the blend wall created by limiting ethanol to ten percent of gasoline blends.
For those who haven’t followed it, the VEETC blender’s credit financed the build out of ethanol production capacity in advance of the ethanol requirements stipulated in RFSII/EISA 2007. We know what it’s like to have a lot more demand than supply—it happened when a whole raft of states suddenly dumped MTBE and required ethanol to oxygenate their fuel in 2005. Not comfortable for anyone. So, needless to say, it’s a good thing when production capacity is in place to meet growing demand. In addition to all its other benefits, this has allowed ethanol to be very price competitive with gasoline.
Having an export market for the time being will create a place for new production to go, until domestic demand catches up. It also creates breathing room for cellulosic ethanol as it launches its first commercial-scale production plants in the next two years.
But the key fundamental for the biofuels industry to continue working, and to continue growing and replacing more and more of our foreign oil consumption, is the RFSII requirement. Without the floor provided by that legislation, we simply will not see the venture capital come to the marketplace to finance any further ethanol production capacity. Banks need a sure thing, and investors look to the banks’ willingness before they pony up equity.
We need renewable energy to continue growing jobs, to stem the tide of dollars flowing out to foreign oil producers, to enjoy the national and economic security of not being beholden to other countries for something as basic as energy, and we need renewable energy in order to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce the environmental impact of energy production and use. Keeping RFSII in place is fundamental to a positive development in our energy future.
