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.

“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.

Vice President Joe Biden, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genakowski kicked off the “rural road trip” today in Pennsylvania, announcing $4 billion in loans and grants to bring broadband internet service to rural communities. Other stops are planned in Alaska, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

During her interview, Michelle asked the president about renewable fuels. “Obviously, I come from a farm state – Illinois – and ethanol has been a big boon for a lot of rural communities,” he said. “But we also are recognizing the key for us is to move into the next generation of biofuels, how can we use wood chips and refuse and switchgrass and how can we improve the efficiency of first generation biofuels. Farmers are going to be critical to that entire process.”

Michelle also asked President Obama about a number of other issues, including the climate change bill, whether farmers should be concerned about increasing regulations, and how the government might be able to help the livestock industry.

Listen to Michelle’s entire interview with the president here:

“We have something that I think works for agriculture. We still have a couple little areas that may get resolved down the line. But we’ve come to an agreement,” Peterson said yesterday.

Part of the agreement includes allowing USDA to have oversight for agricultural carbon offset programs instead of EPA. “The climate change bill will include a strong agriculture offset program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will allow farmers, ranchers, and forestland owners to participate fully in a market-based carbon offset program,” said Peterson. “This agreement also addresses concerns about international indirect land use provisions that unfairly restricted U.S. biofuels producers and exempts agriculture and forestry from the definition of a capped sector.”

Peterson now says he will vote for the sweeping legislation, and other Democrats on the House Ag Committee who were opposed are likely to do so as well, meaning the bill is now more likely to pass. President Obama even thanked Peterson for his work on the bill during his press conference yesterday. “We all know why this is so important,” the president said of the legislation. “The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century’s global economy. That’s what this legislation seeks to achieve — it’s a bill that will open the door to a better future for this nation. And that’s why I urge members of Congress to come together and pass it.”

Farm groups also seem happier with the agreement. Read more from the NY Times.

The original public comment period was to end on May 21 and will now end on July 20, giving farmers behind on planting more time to get comments submitted.

National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) President Bob Dickey said they were glad to hear the news. “Because of the importance of this issue to America’s farmers and the pressing need to get our crops in the ground, we asked EPA to extend the time for comments from 30 to 90 days. Our growers need this extra time to be full participants in this important public policy process,” he said.

Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis said, “We are aware of over 10,000 Americans who have already voiced their support for a higher blend of ethanol in our fuel supply and this extension makes it possible for thousands more to participate. We think it’s especially important that the American farmer, who is in the fields from sunrise to sunset this time of year, is given more time to get involved.”

The current limit on the amount of ethanol that can be blended into a gallon of gasoline is at ten volume percent ethanol (E10) for conventional (non flex-fuel) vehicles. Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers submitted the E15 waiver application on March 6, and EPA must make a decision by December 1, 2009.

During a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged that the proposal is meeting resistance from agricultural groups. “We’re willing to work with Congress on this,” Vilsack said. “There has been a lot of conversation about whether or not it ought to be adjusted gross income as opposed to gross sales. We’re certainly happy to look at that. We’re also certainly happy to look at the hard cap of $250,000.” Vilsack says they want to maintain a good safety net for farmers but at the same time wants that to be fiscally responsible.

National Corn Growers Association First Vice President Darrin Ihnen says the areas targeted by the president’s budget are alarming. “In agriculture today it is relatively common to see gross annual sales of over $500,000, but that does not mean net income,” said Ihnen. “Our growers need a strong safety net and our industry will be weakened if the government begins to cut crop insurance funding and basing payment eligibility on rules that ignore production costs and long term business investment.”

NCGA earlier this year joined a coalition of national farm and agricultural groups to oppose President Obama’s proposal.

“You are going to kill off the biofuels industry before it ever gets started. You’re in bed with the oil companies,” Peterson said to Margo Oge, head of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality. “Why would you put indirect costs on corn and soybeans and not put it on oil? What about all the indirect of protecting the oil shipping lanes in the Middle East? This is ridiculous what’s going on here.”

“We’re off on some peer review, why aren’t we peer reviewing all these other things? Because people don’t like corn ethanol,” said Peterson.

“I want this message to be sent back down the street,” Peterson continued. “I’m off the train. I will not support any kind of climate change bill. I don’t care. Even if you fix this. Because I don’t trust anybody anymore. I’ve had it.”

Listen to Peterson’s statement here:

Peterson’s vocal opposition to the Obama administration’s priority for climate change legislation prompted a response from Heather Zichal, White House deputy advisor on energy and climate change. “There should be no question – the Obama Administration is committed to renewable fuels,” she said in a statement.

Probably the best words of praise came from Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who noted that agriculture is one of the nation’s greatest resources for energy. “We have incredible capacity not only to grow the food we need and to have dynamic exports, we can also grow a considerable amount of energy,” said Chu. (Take that, fuel versus foodies!)

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson also noted the important role agriculture has in supplying the nation’s energy needs. “In the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), Congress recognized the need for a homegrown fuel source,” said Jackson. “Every year, we send billions of dollars overseas, often to unfriendly places. With renewable fuels, we can send those billions to rural and farming communities, people who need help most in these challenging economic times.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is supposed to say nice things about agriculture, but we’ll give him some credit for saying them anyway. It was especially encouraging that he got top billing in yesterday’s press conference, which was really about the release of EPA’s proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuels Standard. It indicates that the Obama administration really does recognize the critical role agriculture plays in the biofuels industry, as Vilsack stated in his comments. “This reflects President Obama’s commitment to rural America. It merges and marries together rural economic development with agriculture to create clean jobs and clean opportunity. It is a firm commitment in making this industry an integral part of this new 21st century American economy,” said Vilsack. “It provides additional income opportunities for American farmers and ranchers, jobs for those who live in rural communities and energy security for every single American.”

Listen to the press conference here:

With that announcement coming out as the 2009 Commodity Classic was getting underway, it was the first question that came up during a press conference with National Corn Growers Association president Bob Dickey, a grower from Nebraska, who says they are very concerned about that statement but they need to examine the proposal closer.

“I can tell you that we will take a strong stand to defend out corn producers,” Dickey said. “We do have policy on that and we will defend our policy.”

The budget would also support the implementation of a 250-thousand dollar commodity program payment limit and reduce crop insurance subsidies.

On the plus side, Obama’s 3.55 trillion dollar budget for fiscal year 2010 would provide over 20-billion dollars in loans and grants to support and expand rural development activities and make investments to double the nation’s renewable energy capacity.

Of course there is a lot in it for corn growers and anyone involved in agriculture to be interested in. You can listen to and even download the full call-in on AgWired at this link.

One piece I pulled out that you might find interesting is on the Secretary’s answer to a question about increasing the blend cap for ethanol. A reporter asked if sound science and data supports an expansion of the ethanol blending cap. He didn’t really directly answer that but said that USDA would support accelerating research on ethanol production and promoting second and third generation feedstocks.

You can listen to the Secretary’s answer to that question here: