Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack traveled to Pennsylvania last week to celebrate investing over $3 billion in 135 projects under the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities since its creation in September 2022. Vilsack highlighted the initiative’s success to date, including: – Enrollment of over 3.2 million acres of working land into climate-smart practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. …
Ethanol Groups Urge Book and Claim for CSA
USDA received testimony Tuesday at a public consultation on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and biofuel feedstocks urging federal agencies to embrace book-and-claim supply chain management approaches to decouple CSA carbon credits. Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper said in his testimony that innovative supply chain management solutions are needed to fully realize the benefits of CSA practices in the …
Farmers Touting Tech to Lower Carbon Score
Farmers discussed the potential for technology to help lower their carbon intensity (CI) scores at the recent Tech Hub LIVE conference in Des Moines. Brad McDonald, an Iowa farmer and Chief Operating Officer of Continuum Ag, talked about how incentives for adopting regenerative agriculture practices such as cover crops and no till to lower CI scores could generate a new …
Farmers and Ethanol Workers Call for E15 Waiver
Nearly 1,000 farmers, ethanol industry workers and other supporters from across the country sent a letter to President Biden this week calling for action to allow continued access to E15 throughout the upcoming summer driving season. “With the 2024 summer driving season just a few months away, we are urging your administration to take additional action that will ensure consumers …
Ag Secretary Calls Census Numbers “Wake Up Call”
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) on Tuesday released results of the 2022 Census of Agriculture, which includes more than 6 million data points about America’s farms and ranches and the people who operate them down to the county level. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack joined NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer and USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economic Chavonda …
Corn Farmers Express Concerns About EV Focus
Thousands of farmers from across the country signed a letter that was sent to President Joe Biden last week expressing concern that his administration is taking a short-sighted approach to addressing climate change by prioritizing the use of electric vehicles over biofuels, such as corn ethanol, as it works to drastically lower the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. “If we are …
ACE Honors South Dakota Farmer Ron Alverson
The person who received the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) Merle Anderson Award this year is one of the most humble geniuses you will ever meet. Ron Alverson is a South Dakota farmer who helped found Dakota Ethanol and is considered to be the “carbon guru” of the ethanol industry. He was also a good friend of the man ACE’s …
Second Part of Iowa Carbon Study Released
The second part of a study looking at potential impacts if Iowa prevents carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects was released this week by Decision Innovation Solutions (DIS) and the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA), finding that farm income could drop by more than $1 billion annually. DIS concluded: “Ethanol production in the state of Iowa has brought tens of …
Yield10 Bioscience Offers 2023 Camelina Production Contracts
a href=”http://agwired.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/y-10.png”>Yield10 Bioscience has announced its 2023 enrollment program for contract production of Camelina in targeted areas of the United States and Canada. Contracts are being offered for both spring and winter varieties of Camelina to farmers in Western Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), and Northern U.S. states of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho and Minnesota. In 2023, Yield10 …
ACE Submits Feedback on IRA Implementation
The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) submitted comments this week to the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) on how funding in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for key NRCS conservation programs should be implemented to encourage farmer adoption of climate-smart practices. ACE CEO Brian Jennings and Jonathon Lehman, founder of the consulting group Cultivating Conservation, provided comments to NRCS, …