Ethanol and biofuels in general were in the spotlight at a forum for agribusiness executives held this week in St. Louis by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.

About 100 executives of farm equipment companies and other agribusinesses attended the one day event, which featured a number of presentations that focused on biofuels. Even those speakers who were addressing other topics ended up discussing ethanol and its impact on the agriculture industry.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer started the forum off by discussing agriculture issues of today and the future, with the top two being trade and biofuels. “The continued development of the renewable fuels industry is critically important to the future growth of American agriculture,” Schafer said.

He talked about the release this week of the Biofuels Action Plan, which he calls “an essential road map that points out how we are going to meet the Renewable Fuels Standard.” He says the plan points out the way to use different feedstocks, what needs to be done to commercialize second generation biofuels, and the infrastructure needed.

Also talking about biofuels during the forum were Dr. Jay Lehr of The Heartland Institute, Terry Francl of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Allen Rider with 25x’25 and a panel of commodity organization representatives.