Corn growers are being urged to contact the Environmental Protection Agency by May 21 to support an increase in the allowable ethanol blend for gasoline up to 15 percent.
“We need to get comments into the EPA relating back to how ethanol is important to growers, to their farms, to their families, how it’s important to economic success in the Midwest and all across the country and how it’s important for energy security,” says National Corn Growers Association first vice president Darrin Ihnen. He suggests going to the NCGA website or state corn grower association websites for information on how to make comments by email or regular mail.
Corn growers have been encouraged by comments that have been made by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who told farm broadcasters meeting in Washington this week that he has a good working relationship with Jackson. “By virtue of that line of communication, I think we’ve made a difference in EPA accelerating their consideration on the blend wall issue for ethanol,” said Vilsack. “We’ve got an important industry that’s sort of an infant industry that’s going through a tough time now and increasing that percentage, whatever it is, that’s going to help.”
Vilsack says they have made a very concerted effort to educate EPA about the status of the ethanol industry and how important it is to the president’s goals that we maintain the infrastructure.
Listen to Vilsack’s comments on that issue here:
Meanwhile, a group of 36 diverse organizations, including livestock, poultry and food industry associations, are asking EPA to extend the comment period on the petition to increase the ethanol blend rate. In a letter addressed to the EPA Docket Clerk, the organizations expressed their appreciation of agency’s efforts in soliciting comments on this waiver application. However, “because of the complexity and highly technical nature of the application’s potential implications, a 60-day extension would be needed, given the diverse array of parties that would be impacted, as well as the limited time to review.”
The EPA Docket No: [EPA–HQ–OAR–2009–0211; FRL–8894–5], “Notice of Receipt of a Clean Air Act Waiver Application to Increase the Allowable Ethanol Content of Gasoline to 15 Percent; Request for Comment,” was published in the Federal Register on April 21, 2009.
Representatives from the Corn Farmers Coalition (CFC), an alliance of the National Corn Growers Association and 10 state corn associations, discussed implementation of Farm Bill reforms, federal and state ethanol regulations, and other issues affecting America’s largest crop during a Thursday teleconference with reporters.
CFC Director Mark Lambert said they just want to get the facts about corn farming out to policy makers. For example, “It’s a little known fact that we are growing five times as much corn as our grandfathers did in the 1930s on 20 percent less land,” said Lambert.
Facts like these are vital to stress as the issue of indirect land use gains traction in ethanol policy decisions on the state and federal levels, according to Ross Korves, economic-policy analyst and expert on farm and trade policy for the research firm ProExporter Network. “As corn farmers get more productive, so does corn’s environmental impact abate,” said Korves. “More productivity per acre means we produce more corn on the same acres. There is no land use effect because we are simply not using more land.”
National Corn Growers Association first vice president Darrin Ihnen, a farmer from South Dakota, says ethanol is not only an important market for corn growers, it continues to be the primary way for the nation to lessen its dependence on foreign oil. “As a corn farmer, let me tell you, we need that new market because with the new generation of biotech seeds and our productivity going through the roof, we’re going to have plenty of bushels to go around,” Ihnen said. “By the end of last year, the US had the capacity to produce more than 10.8 billion gallons of ethanol, displacing more than seven percent of the total annual gasoline use.”
The CFC is providing input as the Environmental Protection Agency develops rules for implementing the Renewable Fuels Standard and considers increasing the ethanol blend rate to 15 percent. “All we ask is that they consider the facts,” Lambert says.
Fred Yoder of the National Corn Growers Association said carbon caps would likely cause increased input costs for farmers. Fertilizer prices — which track the cost of oil and natural gas and have seen major increases over the past year — could go up even more under a climate bill, he said.
“Our costs are going to go up even if agriculture remains an uncapped entity — we will be profoundly impacted by everyone else’s carbon,” Yoder said. “Really what we are looking for is an offset to bring back some of those extra costs.”
The potential boon for farmers in climate legislation would be if they could get payments for their conservation efforts to trap greenhouse gas emissions. Farm groups are calling on Congress to give agriculture a significant portion of offsets in the bill.
“It scares all farmers about viability,” Yoder told the panel. “If we’re going to go down this road, we have to have some kind of mechanism to offset costs.”
Genetically engineered beagles that glow in the dark have made the news across the globe this week.
The four cute little “ruby puppies” were produced by cloning with a gene that produces a red fluorescent protein that makes them glow. The South Korean scientists who did it say this proves it is possible to successfully insert genes with a specific trait, which could lead to implanting other, non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases.
Meanwhile, scientists at Dow AgroSciences announced this week that for the first time a gene has been successfully inserted into a specific, pre-determined location in the corn genome.
While that may not be as cute, cuddly or cool as glow-in-the-dark puppies, the breakthrough holds huge potential for increasing crop production.
The new development, EXZACT™ Precision Technology, is based on utilizing proprietary Zinc-Finger Nucleases™ (ZFNs) for trait engineering and establishes a new industry standard to enhance global crop production through precise genetic modification in plant species. It is the only technology capable of specifically targeting any DNA sequence, thereby providing flexibility and versatility in genetic research and enabling developers to add, delete or edit genes in plants. EXZACT™ Precision Technology enhances the efficient discovery and development of novel traits and solutions for crop production.
I just wonder … if you combine these two breakthroughs, would you get a corn dog that can double as a flashlight?
The media firestorm about so-called “swine flu,” based partially on realistic fears and partially on sensationalism, rightly has pork producers worried. And yet the truth is …
Issues affecting corn growers were major topics of discussion at the annual National Association of Farm Broadcasting Washington Watch Issues Forum this week in the nation’s capitol.
Among those on hand to be interviewed by more than 30 farm broadcast journalists were (pictured left to right) National Corn Growers Association Directors of Public Policy Rod Snyder and Jessica Bennett, Ohio Corn Growers Executive Director Dwayne Siekman and NCGA Vice President of Public Policy Jon Doggett. They discussed a number of important issues, including the new ACRE program, higher ethanol blends, the Clean Water Act, and the impact of climate change legislation on agriculture.
The issues forum was held on Monday, the first day of sign up for the 2008 farm bill’s Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) Program, and Jon answered lots of questions about that new program.
Listen to an interview with Jon by Chuck Zimmerman of Agwired.com:
Also at the event was Mark Lambert with the Illinois Corn Growers, who serves as director of the new Corn Farmers Coalition, an alliance which includes the National Corn Growers Association and 10 state corn associations. He is pictured here being interviewed by Bob Bosold of WAXX/WAYY Radio in Altoona, WI.
Mark says the goal of the coalition is to bring a very clearly defined message to Washington DC, injecting facts into the debate about issues that impact agriculture. “What we found out is that there are a lot of decisions being made affecting our industry right now and they don’t even understand that family farmers still exist,” Mark says.
Corn ethanol is a clear loser under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) passed by the California Air Resources Board this week, but the bigger losers may be energy independence and the economy.
“This new standard will hurt the domestic biofuels and related industries and increase our nation’s reliance on foreign oil,” said National Corn Growers Association President Bob Dickey. “This decision will also be harmful to our national economy. We may lose a tremendous opportunity to spur economic growth in agricultural communities.”
American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman had a similar reaction. “The California Air Resource Board’s decision Thursday was the absolute worst move at the worst possible time,” said Stallman. “By adopting a low-carbon fuel standard based on anecdotal science, the board unfairly punishes renewable, American-grown biofuels, and has created greater market demand for imported petroleum products,” said Stallman.
Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen says E10 is part of the baseline in California, so ethanol will continue to be used, but it would have to be produced from something other than Midwest grain under the LCFS. “The assumption is that Brazilian ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, California ethanol will all provide significant greenhouse gas benefits that Midwest corn-derived ethanol will not, which just makes no sense,” Dinneen said.
Both ethanol and agricultural interests provided compelling arguments that the LCFS indirect land use determinations are flawed and neglect to take into account important considerations such as increasing corn yields and credits for distillers grains by-products. As a concession, the board did agree to form an expert work group to review the standard’s determination of indirect fuel effects, which Dinneen says gives the industry another chance to make its case.
“Forming such a group is a clear signal that several important questions regarding the science and methodology used to develop and implement this standard remain unanswered,” said Dinneen. “Nevertheless, we are optimistic that the expert panel soon to be convened by ARB will recommend the changes necessary to enable the LCFS to be successful.”
The board voted 9-1 in favor of the standard but nearly half of the board members expressed doubts about the accuracy of computer modeling that makes ethanol look worse because of its indirect effects by assuming that growing corn in the Midwest to make ethanol means that an equivalent amount of land will be placed into production in another area of the world to grow more food.
The California Air Resources Board (ARB) “believes that corn ethanol will play an important role in helping California achieve the goals” of its proposed low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) being considered this week.
That according to a letter received this week by Growth Energy from board chairperson Mary Nichols.
Regarding concerns that the proposed LCFS is biased against corn ethanol, Nichols wrote:
The LCFS supports the market for corn ethanol in California over the next decade at least. In the next few years, based on representations from the renewable fuels industry and others, we expect the market to shift to lower carbon biofuels produced from new materials using advanced production technologies. I also wanted to make you aware that I am asking the Board to take the following three additional steps to ensure that low-carbon biofuels, including low-carbon corn ethanol can continue to contribute to California’s economy, and in helping fuel suppliers reach the standard.
The board is expected to issue a ruling on Friday after hearing arguments.
Dairy farmers and livestock producers from southern Missouri gathered at the McCallister Farm last week to explore nutritional considerations, storage techniques and the economic advantages for feeding livestock the ethanol co-product dried distillers grains (DDGs). Sponsored by the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council (MCMC) and University of Missouri Extension, the field day drew a crowd of 75 producers and guests from across the state.
“As a feed source, distillers grains offer economic and nutritional benefits to Missouri’s livestock producers,” said Gary Wheeler, Missouri Corn director of business development. “This field day allowed dairy producers to see those benefits firsthand. We hope they will take advantage of this value-added feed and apply what they learned at this event in their own operations.”
During the field day, producers learned the proper storage and handling techniques for dried distillers grains from the McCallisters, who utilize the ethanol co-product in their operation. Jeff Drost (pictured), animal nutrition sales manager with LifeLine Foods of St. Joseph, Mo., explained the latest technology and uses of corn and its co-products and LifeLine also provided the distillers grains for the field day.
Motorists in Grand Island, Nebraska now have a range of choices at the pump when it comes to ethanol blended gasoline, thanks to help from the Nebraska Corn Board.
Six ethanol blender pumps were unveiled last week providing flexible-fuel vehicle owners with the option of using E85, E30, E20 or the traditional E10 blend of gasoline. “If you drive a flex-fuel vehicle, you don’t have to fill up with E85 all the time,” said Jon Holzfaster, chairman of the Nebraska Corn Board. “You can choose your ethanol blend based on price, performance and availability. That’s why they’re called ‘flexible.”
Higher blends of ethanol are key to realizing the full benefits of this domestically produced, renewable fuel, Holzfaster said. “The more flex fuel vehicles we have—and the higher blends of ethanol available across the nation—the more we generate economic strength for Nebraska and our entire nation, reduce our expensive and dangerous dependence on imported oil, and improve our environment,” said Holzfaster.
A computer sensor automatically compensates for varying levels of ethanol in the gasoline. The pumps were installed at the Bosselman’s station on Allen Drive in Grand Island. Bosselman’s plans to install more blender pumps in the state, with the next planned for stores at Ainsworth and Chappell.
Corn growers have been encouraged by comments that have been made by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who told farm broadcasters meeting in Washington this week that he has a good working relationship with Jackson. “By virtue of that line of communication, I think we’ve made a difference in EPA accelerating their consideration on the blend wall issue for ethanol,” said Vilsack. “We’ve got an important industry that’s sort of an infant industry that’s going through a tough time now and increasing that percentage, whatever it is, that’s going to help.”
CFC Director Mark Lambert said they just want to get the facts about corn farming out to policy makers. For example, “It’s a little known fact that we are growing five times as much corn as our grandfathers did in the 1930s on 20 percent less land,” said Lambert.
Genetically engineered beagles that glow in the dark have made the news across the globe this week. 
Meanwhile, scientists at 
Issues affecting corn growers were major topics of discussion at the annual 
Also at the event was Mark Lambert with the Illinois Corn Growers, who serves as director of the new 
That according to a letter received this week by 
Motorists in Grand Island, Nebraska now have a range of choices at the pump when it comes to ethanol blended gasoline, thanks to help from the Nebraska Corn Board.