Commentary
Don’t Bet Against the American Farmer
By Dallas Tonsager, Under Secretary
USDA Rural Development
peaking at the annual Commodity Classic
farm conference in Tampa, Fla., in early
March, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
took a strong stand in support of our nation’s
biofuels industry. He said American
agriculture can produce enough crops to supply both our
food and biofuel needs.
“Don’t bet against the American Farmer,” Sec. Vilsack
said. “If you do, it’s a losing bet.”
The Secretary’s words resonate deeply as Americans are
once again watching, with that all-too-familiar feeling of
helplessness, as gas prices soar in the wake of
the political turmoil in North Africa and the
Middle East.
According to one estimate, each penny
increase at the gas pump sucks $1 billion out
of the U.S. economy. Petroleum imports
account for 50 percent of our nation’s trade
deficit.
American farmers and their co-ops are not
the types to just wring their hands over the
situation; they have stepped up to the plate
and are trying their best to do something
about it.
To help our nation progress further along
the road to energy independence, Arkansas farmer Joey
Massey and his fellow board members of MFA Oil are
supporting an ambitious plan under which its farmermembers
would plant a special grass crop (Miscanthus x
giganteus) on nonproductive farmland in Missouri and
Arkansas as a feedstock for biomass fuel. As you can read on
page 4 of this issue, the co-op would then process the grass
into biomass pellets, which will be marketed to power plants
and the poultry industry (for heating poultry barns). At a
later date, the grass could also be used to produce ethanol.
Massey looks forward to the day when he will not only
help feed the nation and world with his rice, wheat and
soybean crops, but will also run a farming operation that
produces all of its own energy needs. MFA Oil CEO Jerry
Taylor cites a study that shows that the project could create
2,700 new jobs and have a $150 million impact on the region.
Those who attended a session on biomass power that I
moderated at the recent USDA Ag Outlook Forum heard
about the Tennessee Biomass Innovation Park, where a
demonstration cellulosic ethanol plant is producing fuel from
switchgrass supplied by a farmer co-op (this project will be
featured in an upcoming issue of Rural Cooperatives).
Meanwhile, in Iowa and elsewhere, progress is being made
by ethanol processors developing technologies to use crop
residues — such as corn stover — as a source for ethanol.
All of this underscores that there will probably be a
number of different sources for biomass fuel — including
dedicated energy crops (such as Miscanthus and switchgrass),
crop wastes and waste woods.
As readers of this publication know, livestock wastes can
also be used for energy production. More dairy farmers are
turning manure into methane gas energy.
It’s not just what farmers can grow on the
land that produces renewable energy. On the
high plains of the Dakotas, the nation’s largest
co-op wind farm is being developed (see page
10). With 108 wind turbines that can generate
150 megawatts of electricity, the Crow Lake
Wind Project — backed with a loan guarantee
from the Rural Utilities Service of USDA
Rural Development — is a joint effort of the
Basin Electric Cooperative, a local association
of landowners (which owns seven of the
turbines) and a technical college (which owns
one turbine that will be used to help train
future turbine technicians).
When fully operational, the new turbines will mean that
the Bismarck, N.D.-based co-op will be producing 12 percent
of its total power capacity from renewable resources. From
the vantage point of just 10 years ago, that is an amazing
accomplishment. Basin Electric is also recovering heat from
the exhaust of the compressor pumps on gas pipelines.
These projects represent just a small fraction of the
renewable energy projects ongoing, or being planned, across
the nation. Ultimately, rural America’s greatest source of
power is the ingenuity and drive of our people. If we can help
nuture their ideas and determination, I have no doubt that
someday this nation will achieve energy independence.
As Secretary Vilsack indicated, never under estimate the
American farmer. And if I may add to that: never under
estimate what our farmer and utility co-ops are capable of
when the power of one is multiplied by the many.
