Domestic Fuel

The next set of biodiesel refineries will probably continue to be in rural America, but they might be part of livestock operations. This article from BeefProducer.com says Arkansas State University researcher Kevin Humphrey sees real potential for ranchers to produce their own biodiesel from oil seed crops, waste oil or tallow:

“If all you want to do is extract oil and meal, you can do that. If you want to extract and produce meal and then also produce biodiesel, you can do that,” he says.

Matt Roberts, vice president of marketing for Springboard Biodiesel, says if the oil is collected free, as might be beef tallow from rendering, the biodiesel will cost about 95 cents per gallon to make. That price includes the cost of the chemicals to make the biodiesel — methanol, lye, and sulfuric acid.

The article goes on to point out that with many of the biodiesel feedstock oilseeds, especially soybeans, the resulting meal from the crush is a high quality feed. Plus, the glycerin from biodiesel production can be a livestock feed and an ingredient in soaps, lotions and lubricants.

The author also spoke with Darrell Wood, cattle rancher and owner of Leavitt Lake Ranches in Vina, California, who believes a ranch-based biodiesel refinery might just make his place more sustainable.

“It just opens the door for all kinds of possibilities,” Wood says.

Pretty good article. Give it a read here.

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack today renewed a historic agreement with U.S. dairy producers to accelerate the adoption of innovative waste-to-energy projects and energy efficiency improvements on U.S. dairy farms, both of which help producers diversify revenues and reduce utility expenses on their operations. The pact extends a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009.

USDA support for agricultural and waste-to-energy research has played a key role in the agreement’s success to date. Since signing the MOU, USDA has made nearly 180 awards that helped finance the development, construction, and biogas production of anaerobic digester systems with Rural Development programs, such as the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels, Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program, Value Added Producer Grants, amongst others. These systems capture methane and produce renewable energy for on-farm use and sale onto the electric grid. Additionally, during this period, USDA awarded approximately 140 REAP loans and grants to help dairy farmers develop other types of renewable energy and energy efficiency systems at their operations.

Anaerobic digester technology is a proven method of capturing methane from waste products, such as manure, and converting into heat and electricity. The technology utilizes generators that are fueled by the captured methane. Dairy operations with anaerobic digesters routinely generate enough electricity to power hundreds of homes per year.

The Secretary was joined on a conference call to make the announcement by The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy CEO Tom Gallagher and Doug Young, a farmer from NY who has benefited from this MOU.

Listen to that call here: USDA/Dairy MOU press call

Delegates for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) last week voted overwhelmingly to support continuation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), despite the fact that membership in the organization includes a substantial percentage of livestock producers.

“The livestock guys still have concerns about high feed costs, and I’m one of them, I’m a beef producer,” said AFBF president Bob Stallman. “On the other hand, we have this renewable fuels infrastructure that’s in place, a very large industry that employs lots of people and provides a market for a lot of products, so we need to be very careful not to have policies trying to dismantle that.”

There were 362 voting delegates at the 94th AFBF Annual meeting in Nashville last week representing every crop and livestock sector in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. The policies approved at the annual meeting will guide the nation’s largest general farm organization in its legislative and regulatory efforts throughout 2013.

We’ve known for quite a while that biodiesel is helping the bottom lines of feedstock producers, in particular, the nation’s soybean growers. But a new study from the National Biodiesel Board says livestock producers are also sticking more green in their pockets thanks to the green fuel.

In this edition of the Domestic Fuel Cast, we hear from the NBB’s senior advisor for economic issues, Alan Weber, and NBB member and Nebraska farmer and livestock producer Greg Anderson, who explain the bottom line results from a new study.

Check out the NBB’s reports here: AF T BD Demand Impact Final and SBM Analysis Feb 2011 Final

You can listen to the Domestic Fuel Cast here: Domestic Fuel Cast - Biodiesel and Livestock

You can also subscribe to the DomesticFuel Cast here.

The president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says they are very pleased with the decision today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reject a request to waive the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

In an interview immediately after the announcement was made by EPA, Bob Dinneen said he gave the agency credit for sticking to the science and doing sound analysis on the issue. “I was somewhat surprised that the petitioners never really presented EPA with a lot of analysis,” said Dinneen. “That was telling me all along that this was more about politics than about substance.”

Dinneen said the industry has maintained all along that it was not the RFS that caused higher prices for livestock feed this year. “It’s Mother Nature – it was this drought – and what we ought to be doing it sitting down and having a more constructive discussion about (this).”

Dinneen notes that the market has responded to the higher corn prices and lower supply. “The ethanol industry is down about 11 or 12% in terms of our production, our corn consumption, and you’re seeing exports being reduced some, other industrial uses being reduced some, and feeders looking for other sources of feed,” he said.

The ethanol industry is anticipating that the RFS will continue to face challenges by the oil industry and others opposed to the use of corn ethanol. “I don’t believe that they will be successful because in any objective review of this program, it has been an unmitigated success,” said Dinneen.

Listen to this edition of the Ethanol Report with Bob Dinneen. Ethanol Report on RFS Waiver Denial

Subscribe to “The Ethanol Report” with this link.

A group of 17 farmers from Canada, Honduras, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, Swaziland, United Kingdom, Uruguay, US, Zambia, and Zimbabwe had the chance to visit a livestock operation with an ethanol plant next door.

The annual Global Farmer Roundtable, organized by Truth About Trade & Technology (TATT), makes Couser Cattle Company a regular stop for the international farmers each year. TATT Chairman Emeritus Dean Kleckner, former president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, is a big supporter of ethanol himself. “I’m a believer in ethanol from corn,” said Kleckner during an interview at World Food Prize, where the roundtable is held each year. “The corn that is used for ethanol, a lot of that comes back to farmers in the form of distillers grains.”

Couser Cattle Company owner Bill Couser was instrumental in starting the farmer-owned Lincolnway Energy ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa, which is located next to his operation so he can take full advantage of using distillers grains as feed for his livestock.

On the eve of the deadline for providing comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) waiver request, the ethanol industry has released a new study that indicates a waiver could actually increase the cost of feed for livestock and poultry producers.

The analysis, conducted by Cardno-ENTRIX and commissioned by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), finds that if a waiver of the RFS resulted in reduced biofuel output, the minor reductions in corn prices would be partially or fully offset by increased prices for other feed ingredients like distillers grains (DDGS) and soybean meal, according to a release from RFA.

“When viewed in the context of changes in the prices for other key feed ingredients such as distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and soybean meal, the change in total net feed costs for livestock, dairy and poultry feeders would either increase slightly or decrease by a negligible amount if a waiver was granted,” according to the study, conducted by economist John Urbanchuk. “This is due to the fact that if a waiver reduced biofuel output, it would also reduce the available supply of DDGS and soybean meal, which would naturally lead to higher prices for those key feed ingredients.”

These results are corroborated directionally by a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. FAPRI found a 1.3 percent reduction in ethanol output under a waiver could lead to slightly higher distillers grains and soybean meal prices. According to FAPRI, “Lower corn price means lower feed costs for livestock producers, unless offset by slightly higher soybean meal and distillers grains prices.”

Cardno-ENTRIX RFS analysis

Thursday, October 11, is the deadline for providing comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) waiver request and stakeholders are urged to make their voices heard before the end of the day tomorrow. More information on how to make comments to EPA can be found at ChooseEthanol.com.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack held a town hall meeting at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin this week and took questions from the audience, one of which concerned ethanol and the impact it has had on livestock producers.

The questioner, who was from California, said ethanol was “not a very popular word” with dairy farmers in her state. “Where I come from ethanol is not a four letter word,” Vilsack responded, noting that ethanol has not only helped increase profitability and production for farmers but also helped the economy, national security, and the environment. “Those are the benefits – jobs, higher incomes, lower gas costs, environmental benefits and reduction of our reliance on foreign oil,” said Vilsack.

The secretary also carefully explained that because ethanol returns livestock feed to the market in the form of distillers grains (DDGS). “We hear a lot of people say that 40% of the corn crop is being used for fuel production but it’s not really 40% because a third of it comes back in DDGS which is used by the livestock industry,” he said. “So, it’s less than 40%, more like 27 percent.”

In addition, Vilsack talked about how USDA is helping the industry move into the production of advanced ethanol using feedstocks beyond corn. “We have financed at USDA nine separate biorefineries that use corn stover, algae, switchgrass, woody biomass, agricultural waste, municipal waste,” he said.

Vilsack also defended the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and the current request before EPA to waive that standard, noting that Congress passing a new food, farm and jobs bill would do more to help livestock producers impacted by high feed costs due to the drought than waiving the RFS would.

Listen to or download Vilsack’s comments here: Ag Secretary Vilsack on ethanol at Dairy Expo

Responding to plans by livestock and poultry groups to seek a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard, the head of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) expects the request to be denied.

“Given the flexibilities inherent to the RFS, and the fact that waiving the program would not result in any meaningful impacts on corn prices, we fully expect Administrator Jackson to deny any waiver request,” said Bob Dinneen, RFA president and CEO. “A dispassionate review of the facts can lead to only one conclusion: a waiver of the RFS would simply reward oil companies that have long sought to repeal this very important and successful program. The RFS has reduced our dependence on imported oil and saved consumers at the pump.”

Still, despite the downturn in production and continued demand rationing by the ethanol industry, obligated parties (petroleum refiners and blenders) should have no problem meeting the RFS. The ability of obligated parties to “bank” excess Renewable Identification Number (RIN) credits and use them for compliance in the following year provides a significant measure of flexibility that takes pressure off of the corn market in the event of a short crop. It is estimated that some 2.4 to 2.6 billion excess renewable fuel RIN credits are currently available to obligated parties, equivalent to nearly 20 percent of this year’s RFS renewable fuel requirement.

Tight corn supplies, higher corn prices, low ethanol processing margins, export demand and high soybean meal prices are among the factors contributing to higher prices for dried distillers grains plus solubles (DDGS), the ethanol co-product used as livestock feed.

South Dakota State University economics professor Darrell Mark says price for distillers grains usually declines going into summer as cattle feedlot inventories decline and more cow herds and stockers are turned out to pasture. This year, however, distillers grains prices have been increasing going into summer.

“The average price for dried distillers grains plus solubles (DDGS) in South Dakota increased about $3/ton during each week of May although it did moderate some in the first two weeks of June. While domestic demand from the cattle industry is not substantially deviating from normal seasonal trends, several other supply and demand factors have driven the price increases in recent weeks and are likely to continue through the summer months,” said Mark, a market analyst for iGrow.org.

“With high corn prices, ethanol producers have struggled to maintain margins, and are finding incentive to run at reduced capacity and shut down plants for longer periods of time for maintenance, etc.,” Mark said. “Doing so can lessen their losses, but it does reduce the amount of distillers grain produced as well. Thus, with lower supply of distillers grains, prices tend to rise, as have been seen throughout 2012.”

Mark encourages producers to discuss this issue with their current distillers grain suppliers and understand their plant production schedule. He also suggests they purchase product from two or more plants to help offset risk associated with losing distillers grain from one particular plant.

Higher soybean meal prices and export demand for DDGs is also helping to boost prices but Mark expects the impact of the high old crop corn prices and soybean meal prices to lessen by early fall as U.S. corn and soybean supplies become available.

“With the prospects for a record large corn crop and lower prices, ethanol production is likely to increase as margins improve, thus increasing distillers grain production,” he said.

An agricultural economist says hog producers are now able to compete with ethanol producers for corn.

“This is an amazing difference from just five years ago,” said Purdue agricultural economist Dr. Chris Hurt. “The hog industry was largely set up with $2-2.50 corn going into 2006. After that we saw major increases in those corn prices.” Dr. Hurt spoke to swine veterinarians on the topic of “Global Feed Economics in a Biofuel World” during seminar in Denver on Friday.

Hog producers initially absorbed those higher costs by reducing margins, which meant big losses and ultimately resulted in reduced supplies. “You reduce the supply enough, you bring those hog prices up. That’s where we are today. Hog producers can pay $6-7 for corn with the prices they’re getting for hogs,” he said. “That up to $7 is higher than ethanol plants can pay for corn and still cover all their costs.”

Dr. Hurt is certain that the days of $2 corn are over, but he does expect prices to moderate around $5-5.50 a bushel. While he does believe that livestock producers have adjusted over the past five years to living in a “biofuel world,” he’s hesitant to say there is “equilibrium” between ethanol and livestock production. “Obviously, equilibrium is the ‘golden state’ where everybody is covering their costs but often times we’re in dis-equilibrium,” he said. “I think as we look back on this era, we’re going to say that ultimately the renewable fuels program was a very, very aggressive program. Had corn farmers had ten years to build that up, it would have caused a lot less trauma for other sectors, like our livestock sector.”

Listen to an interview with Dr. Hurt here: Dr. Chris Hurt

There is a lot made about tensions between the ethanol and livestock industries but the distillers grains co-product of ethanol production is providing significant benefits for animal producers even as ethanol has helped prop up corn prices.

A great discussion at the 6th Annual Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit featured corn and cattle organizations on the same panel talking about the “Synergies of Livestock and Ethanol.”

Moderator Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey opened the discussion by noting that sales of crops and livestock have risen as ethanol production has increased from $12 billion in 2002 – 6 billion in crop and 6 billion in livestock – to $24 billion in 2010, and 2011 is expected to be about $30 billion with at least $13 billion of that for livestock. “$13 billion on the livestock side versus $6 billion nine years ago,” Northey said. “Has ethanol been good for livestock agriculture in Iowa? I think very clearly.”

Listen to a brief interview with Secretary Northey here: Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey

Iowa Cattlemen’s Association Executive Director Matt Deppe says it’s easy to see the benefits that distillers grains (DDGS) have brought to especially cattle feeders. “We look at it as a corn replacement,” Deppe says about DDGS. “It means that they (feedlot operators) have another option that’s cost effective to put into their rations.”

Listen to an interview with Matt Deppe here: Matt Deppe Interview

The livestock industry has traditionally been the most important market for corn, noted Iowa Corn Growers CEO Craig Floss, although use for ethanol has increased significantly in the past decade. “But a third of every one of those bushels that goes into an ethanol plant goes into DDGS,” he said.

The panel also included Randy Ives, director of ethanol services for the commodity management firm Gavilon Group.

Listen to or download the entire panel discussion here: Ethanol and Livestock panel

Photos from 2012 Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit

A new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report finds that the ethanol co-product known as distillers grains or DDGS is replacing even more corn and soybean meal in livestock and poultry feed rations than previously thought.

According to the report by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), “We found that, on average, for the past 5 crop years (2006/07-2010/11), 1 mt of distillers’ grains substitutes for about 1.22 mt of corn and soybean meal combined in the United States.”

The report also noted that “Feed market impacts of increased corn use for ethanol are smaller than that indicated by the total amount of corn used for ethanol production because of DDGS.” In fact, ERS found the amount of feed (corn and soybean meal) replaced by the DDGS represents nearly 40 percent (on a weight basis) of the corn used in the associated ethanol production process for a given crop year.

Read the report here.

“The value of the animal feed produced by the ethanol industry has long been misunderstood, understated and misrepresented,” said Geoff Cooper, Renewable Fuels Association Vice President of Research & Analysis. “Distillers grains continue to be the industry’s best kept secret, despite the fact that we are producing tremendous volumes of this high value feed product today. DDGS and other ethanol feed products significantly reduce the need for corn and soybean meal in animal feed rations. Over the past several years, distillers grains have been one of the most economically competitive sources of energy and protein available on the world feed market. While some critics of the ethanol industry attempt to downplay the role of DDGS, the facts simply can’t be ignored.”

RFA believes the report has important implications for discussions regarding ethanol’s impact on feed grains availability, feed prices, land use effects, and the greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of producing corn ethanol.

Read more about the report from RFA here.

Crave Brothers is promoting their commitment to the environment and renewable energy on the farm and in the farmstead cheese factory with a newly unveiled logo.

The new Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese logo features a dairy cow inside a green circle with the words “Produced with Renewable Energy.”

In producing their family of award-winning artisan cheeses, the Crave Brothers use 100% green power, and practice water conservation and recycling. Their commitment is evident in their land management practices and in the way they care for their cows. As a carbon-negative company, they produce more electricity with their bio digester generator than they use for their dairy farm and cheese plant. Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese goes one step further, too, inviting customers to join them in the quest for sustainability by reusing and recycling the cheese packaging. Customers can find this new logo on their cheese packages later in the year.

Crave Brothers Cheeses are created at a farmstead cheese factory in Waterloo, Wisconsin “where state-of-the-art technology promotes sustainability while maintaining traditional quality.”