The Farm Progress Show opens Tuesday in Decatur, Ill., drawing thousands of farmers from all over the map. If you’re going, National Corn Growers Association wil have materials on hand at the Illinois Corn Growers Association tent.
You may recall that the Environmental Protection Agency official in charge of regulating emissions admitted during a Congressional hearing a few months ago that she had never been to a farm in the United States.
Well, that is going to be rectified this week when Margo Oge, director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, pays a visit to America’s heartland. Oge and Gina McCarthy with the Office of Air and Radiation are scheduled to tour a family farm and a biofuel facility in Iowa on Thursday, according to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
“We’ll begin the day with an information session, discussing low carbon fuel standards, corn and soybean technology, followed by information from the local EPA staff about Agstar program. We’ll then move to a family farm to learn about the work that farmers are doing to produce safe quality products in an environmentally friendly manner,” said the senator during a conference call with farm reporters last week. “Last, we’ll visit the Renewable Energy Group’s facility in Newton to get a tour and an overview, and update from the ethanol and biodiesel industries. I think the day will be beneficial for EPA officials writing regulations that, obviously, have a tremendable and scary impact on agriculture and family farmers.”
Okay, so maybe tremendable isn’t really a word, but that’s what the senator said – and I think we all know what he means. Grassley says he had invited EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to visit, but she is not able to make the trip this week.
Trying to measure unintended consequences of biofuels production could result in more unintended consequences.
That’s the main message corn growers have for regulators who are trying to predict the future by using unproven models to determine lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of fuels like ethanol. At the National Corn Growers Association Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-based Ethanol conference this week in St. Louis, NCGA CEO Rick Tolman explained that the problem is vague direction that was put in the 2007 energy bill’s Renewable Fuels Standard. “We had some arcane language put in there that said we’ll take a look at indirect land change and its implications as an unintended consequence,” Tolman said. “What we think is there’s an unintended consequence of the unintended consequence, which may be that we may in fact start using more imported oil because of this language we have regulation that exceeds our ability to measure.”
Tolman says California’s low carbon fuel standard is an example of how using unproven models that fail to use updated information or accurate future predictions of new technology and higher yields is going to have the opposite effect of what was intended – that is, using less imported fossil fuels. “After 2010, you won’t be able to sell ethanol in California,” said Tolman. “And it is really the only viable low carbon fuel that’s available in California, so that means more oil.”
The corn growers are hoping regulators will take a closer look at what they are trying to do and consider the impact that it will have down the road.
Listen to an interview with Rick Tolman here:
Can you feel the ripple of discontent in agriculture? It seems farmers are getting tired of constant misrepresentation in the media and quasi-experts preaching to them and consumers about how to do their job. I think I feel a shift. I hope I do and we all better help it build and sustain it.
From the movie Food Inc. to the latest article in Time magazine that berates one of our most productive economic sectors, the writing is on the wall. It is time to carve out a little time each week to become an educator if not an advocate for agriculture. Don’t underestimate the power of an individual to make a difference, but likewise, don’t expect others to solve your problems for you.
Agriculture is getting attacked from many directions these days and it is time for a new level of farmer-rancher activism. The very independence you cherish as a farmer may be at risk if you don’t get involved, confront the myths and mistruths in the media and tell your story to consumers at every opportunity.
I came across three good examples of people in the industry making a difference just today. The first is a letter written to Time Magazine by Don Hutchens, Executive Director of the Nebraska Corn Board. (more…)
Kicking off the NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference and welcoming participants was Conference Chairman, Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I spoke with him after the opening session.
Jamey says that regulations from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and from EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) have brought up a number of questions and this conference was put together to ask them and receive answers in a public forum with various stakeholders. A lot of these current or proposed regulations are based on assumptions and economic theory and so questions need to be asked to make sure the latest data is being used and reasonable predictions are made for the future. He says that these issues are extremely important to agribusiness and corn growers in particular because if the CARB regs hold up, by 2012 they will effectively shut off that market to ethanol. Additionally, one presenter said that due to the proposed climate change bill and RFS, approximately 27.1 million acres would be taken out of production across the Unites States. That would have a huge impact on our economy, especially in rural areas.
He also speaks about the various models being used or referenced on the topics like land use change and life cycle analysis.
You can listen to my interview with Jamey here:
The NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference is underway here at the Renaissance hotel by the St. Louis airport. This is our first panel discussion on “Emission Factors and Land Use Change Modeling” which is being moderated by Geoff Cooper, Renewable Fuels Association. We’re talking some very involved talks on things like Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Analysis, Measuring Indirect Land Use from Biofuels, Analysis of the RFS and more.
A snapshot of presenters at the conference include Steven Del Grosso, Colorado State University; Dr. Bruce McCarl, Texas A&M; Nancy Harris, Winrock International; Keith Kline, Oakridge National Laboratory, Ken Copenhaver, University of Illinois, Chicago; Dr. Bruce Dale, Michigan State University; Dr. Wally Tyner, Purdue University; Dr. Pat Westhoff, Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute; and Dr. Michael Wang of Argonne National Laboratory, as well as many others.
This conference is dealing with some issues that are vitally important to everyone in agribusiness, not just in corn production and I will be conducting some interviews with our panelists and presenters this afternoon and will be posting them in coming days.
You can see some photos I’m taking with my iPhone here: NCGA Land Use Conference Photo Album
The ethanol co-product dried distillers grains with solubles, better known as DDGS could provide a new high protein supplement for fish farms.
South Dakota State University professor Michael Brown (pictured) is researching the use of DDGS as one component in the diets of rainbow trout and yellow perch.
To sustain production, fish farmers need to include enough protein in the diets of fish they raise for human consumption, Brown said. Traditionally, the largest share of that protein has come from fish meal derived from ocean species such as menhaden, anchovies, herring and sardine.
“That’s one of the key problems right now, the marine fisheries where we derive most of our fish meals that go into commercial fish feeds have been depleted. Some have been over-harvested and some are on the border of collapse. Similar to any commodity with low supply and high demand, fish meal prices continue to increase, driving fish production costs higher. For these reasons we need to develop alternatives,” Brown said.
SDSU’s aquaculture studies have used DDGS in fish diets for the past few years. But that work was done with conventional DDGS of about 29 percent protein, and about 8 to 10 percent lipids. Brown found that aquaculture feeds could include up to 20 percent of such DDGS products in tilapia feeds without greatly impacting performance, and similarly up to about 40 percent in yellow perch feeds under experimental conditions.
“We were trying to determine the maximum amount that we could include in the diet without adversely affecting growth performance and other metrics of fish production, such as feed efficiency and fillet or dress-out percentage,” Brown said. “The DDG experiments we’ve planned this next year are with yellow perch again, but we’re trying some different products. These will be dried distillers grains with solubles, but these will be about 42 percent protein, so they’re relatively ‘hot,’ if you will, in terms of the protein content. The lipid (fat) levels are reduced a little bit compared to the traditional DDGs, but we can supplement low-level combinations of plant and fish lipids in those diets.”
The higher protein aquaculture feeds could provide additional market opportunities for corn growers.
Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a visit to Nairobi, Kenya where they met with agricultural officials and visited the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).
“We must help Africa produce enough food to feed its people and create economic opportunities for this continent,” Vilsack said during the appearance. “We can provide seed technologies, explain the appropriate use of fertilization, share techniques to manage land effectively, create a strong post-harvest infrastructure – so many things that could help farmers increase their income.”
USDA has partnered with KARI to prevent and control animal and pest diseases and improve food security, and develop and apply products and emerging technologies, “to cultivate hardier crops that can feed more people and thrive in harsher conditions, disease-resistant cassava plants, sweet potatoes enriched with Vitamin A to prevent blindness, maize that can flourish in times of drought.”
In her remarks, Secretary Clinton stressed the importance of agriculture to the world. “We are convinced that investing in agriculture is one of the most high-impact cost-effective strategies available for reducing poverty and saving and improving lives,” she said. “Oftentimes people think, well, if you’re modern, you don’t do agriculture anymore. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. If you don’t do agriculture, you don’t eat.”
Amen to that. Modern agricultural production is key to reducing global poverty. Our system of food production in the United States can and should be replicated. Instead of going backward, as some are advocating in this country, we can and should continue to move forward to wipe out hunger once and for all.
Last week’s TIME Magazine cover story, renamed “Getting Real about the High Cost of Cheap Food,” made me think of a Saturday Night Live segment they like to call “Really?!?”
Really, TIME Magazine?!? Cheap bacon feeds “an American addiction to meat?” Really?!? We’re the only country that likes to eat animal protein, something humans have been doing since the dawn of time? Really?
And, really? Our food is “increasingly bad for us, even dangerous”? Really?!? In case you hadn’t heard, America has the safest food supply in the entire world. Using the salmonella in peanuts problem as an example to say that consumers are now “rightly worried about the safety of their meals?” Really? Consumption of peanuts and peanut butter has now bounced back to almost the same level it was before the outbreak.
Oh, and really, as an example of how we can change the way we eat, “from the very top” we have “First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden has so far yielded more than 225 lb. of organic produce.” Really?!? Let us know when the Obamas can live on what they grow organically at the White House without buying any other food and we’ll be impressed by that “powerful symbolism.”
And just what is your definition of sustainability that “purists worry” will be “co-opted” as a result of large companies like General Mills opening organic divisions. In other words, are you saying that big companies can’t do sustainability because it won’t fit your definition? Really.
TIME tells us that “our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later” because “the earth can no longer deliver.” Really? I would be willing to bet that 20, 50 or 100 years ago there were people saying the same thing – we can’t continue to feed a growing global population, yet we keep finding better ways to grow food more efficiently, and yes – more sustainably. The real definition of sustainability is family farms in this nation that date back two centuries or more with the promise of future generations to come. Really. (more…)
The ag world is all atwitter — literally! — over a new TIME magazine cover story that attacks farming. The magazine seems to have no ethical qualms about allowing the writer’s and editor’s personal opinions to seep through and permeate the whole mess, but the good thing about the Internet is you can edit on the fly and no one notices sometimes.
Note the headline shift from yesterday to today:
For the record, we are glad the “crisis” has been downgraded.
