Rural America’s infrastructure challenges cut to the heart of the six challenges outlined during this morning’s session of the Farm Foundation’s Food and Agriculture Policy Summit being held in Washington, D.C. As you might have read on my earlier post over on AgWired.com, this morning, Farm Foundation Pres. Neil Conklin outlined the six major areas of challenges facing agriculture over …
ADM: We Can Have it All… Food & Fuel
The world’s population will grow by 33 percent by the year 2040, but the amount of farmland to feed and fuel that growing demand won’t have to grow by that same one-third… that’s what attendees at the Farm Foundation’s Food and Agriculture Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. heard this morning. Greg Webb from Archer Daniels Midland gave that optimistic assessment …
Ethanol Fuels Big Three Bail Out Caravan
The Big Three auto makers traveled to Washington this week to ask for a bailout in fuel efficient, high mileage cars, including flex fuel vehicles that run on up to 85 percent ethanol. General Motors’ Rick Wagoner (left) made the trip in a black hybrid Chevrolet Malibu, accompanied by a flex fuel Buick Lucerne, which runs on fuel that is …
Biofuels Key Part of Conversation at Farm Foundation Meeting
It was a pretty amazing event today at the Farm Foundation’s Food and Agriculture Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. today. Seven former Secretaries of Agriculture (six in-person and one by videotape) debated the future of agriculture in America, especially what the immediate future would hold for the next person to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A big part of …
Court Rules VeraSun Can Reject Corn Contracts
Corn growers were happy to have their day in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Tuesday for VeraSun Energy Corporation but the outcome was not favorable. As expected, bankruptcy law and the ruling will allow VeraSun to reject any contracts that are economically disadvantageous to VeraSun, including corn growers’ contracts. According to National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Chairman Ron Litterer of Iowa, they …
Biofuels Part of Policy Summit
The Food and Agriculture Policy Summit, co-hosted by Farm Foundation and Farm Journal Media this week is focusing on the wide range of domestic and global issues facing the food system and agriculture today, including biofuels. The summit kicks off today with the Farm Journal Forum on “What Will Change Bring? Impacts of a New Congress and Administration in the …
Indy Ethanol Fallout
Several different groups are pressuring the Indy Racing League to rethink its decision to partner with Brazil for ethanol to fuel the Indy Car Series. Among them is a conservative, free market group called American Future Fund (AFF) which launched a radio ad which urging Hoosiers and others to call the IRL and tell them to continue using American ethanol …
Cellulosic Ethanol Company Changes Name
There is something new under the sun. Massachusettes-based SunEthanol has changed its name to Qteros, after its Q microbe technology, which may be a key to commercializing cellulosic ethanol. The company has raised $25 million from a diverse group of investors in a Series B round of financing. Among the investors are British Petroleum (BP) and a management group led …
Indy Defends Ethanol Choice
The Brazilian ethanol industry will remain the fuel sponsor of the Indy Racing League in 2009, but the ethanol will come from the United States – at least for the first year. That is a compromise of sorts announced by IRL after meeting with corn ethanol industry representatives. The multi-year partnership between the IndyCar Series and APEX-Brasil — a trade …