With corn prices hovering at about $7 per bushel, some ethanol facilities in the U.S. have been shutting down. But not this Poet facility at Groton, S.D., which was putting out steam and purchasing corn for $6.91 per bushel when Agweek drove by on Jan. 26, 2012.

 
The Renewable Fuel Association put out a weekly ethanol production data for the week ending 2/01/2013.

According to Energy Information Agency data, ethanol production averaged 774,000 barrels per day (b/d) — or 32.50 million gallons daily. That is up 4,000 b/d from the week before. The four-week average for ethanol production stood at 780,000 b/d for an annualized rate of 11.96 billion gallons.

Stocks of ethanol stood at 20.1 million barrels. That is a 2.2% decrease from last week.

Imports of ethanol showed zero b/d.

Gasoline demand for the week averaged 353.4 million gallons daily.

Expressed as a percentage of daily gasoline demand, daily ethanol production was 9.20%.

On the co-products side, ethanol producers were using 11.736 million bushels of corn to produce ethanol and 86,381 metric tons of livestock feed, 77,009 metric tons of which were distillers grains. The rest is comprised of corn gluten feed and corn gluten meal. Additionally, ethanol producers were providing 4.03 million pounds of corn oil daily.

South Dakota Wheat Growers’ elevator terminal at Aberdeen, S.D., still has plenty of 2012 crop to ship in early February. Photo taken Jan. 26, 2013, along U.S. Highway 12.

SUMMIT, S.D. — Michael Miller, 47, of Summit, S.D., and his brother, Mark, have a mostly cow-calf operation. They runs about 180 cows, including about 50 registered Angus and the rest commercial. The winter through the end of January had been optimistic. “The flu keeps going through our house – getting tired of that,” Miller says. Mark also works full-time for another feedlot. Michael’s son, Greg, a recent college graduate,recently joined the operation. The Millers have farm land but rent it out for now.

The Millers sold their calves in December and the market was down a little bit, but they were still happy with it. “We’re watching the markets for next year, so we’re happy with what we see so far, hoping things just hold steady,” he says.

Cattle numbers and the prospects for next year’s corn crop being better than 2012 are the two things that look most encouraging, Miller thinks. If corn could be in the $5 per bushel range that would be better than the $7 range, Miller says.

The Millers have girded themselves for drought by building a lot more corn stalks and straw because the hay crop wasn’t there in 2012. They’ve hired a drilling rig to look for water. “We’re right on the verge of having water trouble,” Michael Miller says.

North Dakota farmers are studying the future of sugar beets for making ethanol fuel.  Meanwhile, thers in the world are doing it, and at an increasing clip.

(Above, Blaine Schatz at the Carrington Research Extension Center in July 2012, said “energy beets” – sugar beets without the latest improvements for sugar extraction – were doing well, even under drier conditions.) 

This week, Bundesverband der deutschen Bioethanolwirtschaft (BDBe), a German ethanol trade organization, has released production statistics for 2012. According to the organization, German ethanol production increased by 7.4 percent last year, which BDBe said is record growth.

In its release, BDBe also noted that the country produced a total of 613,381 metric tons (205.31 million gallons) of ethanol in 2012. Approximately 253,866 metric tons of that production was manufactured from sugar beet feedstock, representing a 54 percent increase. Feed grain was used to produce 359,030 metric tons of ethanol in 2012, a 12 percent decrease when compared to 2011.

“This move demonstrates the flexibility of the German bioethanol producers that responded to the increased use of beet industry to higher grain prices in 2012. The processing of 2.7 million [metric tons] of sugar beet into bioethanol industry is for the preservation of the German sugar beet cultivation is an important branch of production,” said Dietrich Klein, BDBe CEO in a statement.

Statistics published by ePURE, the European renewable ethanol association, show that Germany is currently home to 10 ethanol plants representing a total capacity of more than 1.155 billion liters (305 million gallons). According to ePURE data, Germany produced 770 million liters of ethanol in 2011 and 761 million in 2010.

The dailymeal.com  recently listed America’s 50 Most Powerful People in Food for 2013. The “Family Farmer” is last on the list. Topping the “people who affect what and how and where and why we eat, or could if they wanted to” include:
1) Jack Menzel and Bernardo Hernandez for Zagat, and teams at Google.

2) Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Monsanto Company.

3) Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner of foods, Food and Drug Administration.

4) Patricia Woertz, chairman and president, Archer Daniels Midland.

5) Mike Duke, president and CEO, Walmart.

6) Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO, Pepsi.

7) Donald Thompson, vice president and CEO, McDonalds.

8) Ben Silbermann, founder and CEO, Pinterest.

9) Gregory Page, chairman d CEO, Cargill.

10) Thomas Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

Editors decided that the most influential weren’t always the best-known and that “CEOs could wield more weight than culinary celebrities,” and the number of people whose food choices are affected by a person.

Oh yes, “The Family Farmer” ranked 50^{th —} behind Michael Pollan (47); Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Agriculture (46)  First Lady Michelle Obama (24).

Troy and Stacy Hadrick of South Dakota are having an increasing reach in their Advocates for Agriculture “mission” in the past year and a half and traveled to Australia twice and to Canada. They made a stop in Fargo in the past several weeks, offering some of their unique enthusiasm to a group of poultry and turkey producers.

The couple and their Advocates for Ag “movement” has gained some notoriety for their use of social media – Facebook and Twitter – to spread. They’ve won numerous awards for communicating agriculture’s story and have ties to South Dakota Farm Bureau and the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association.

In 2011, they were involved with a NASCAR and a Farm American public relations program, in connection with Furniture Row racing from Denver. A NASCAR team used its car as a billboard for regional agriculture as it competed around the country. In 2012, the Hadricks shot monthly on-farm educational videos that were used in a fourth grade classroom in Sioux Falls, S.D., and picked up by two different schools. Others – couples or FFA chapters — stepped up and offered to do similar projects.

“I think it’s been really helpful for farmers and ranchers in all areas of the world,” Troy says. “We’ve been able to connect and see that we’re facing similar challenges and work together to send out similar messages about what a great job we do producing food for the world, and why it’s important.”

They recently have gone to Australia at the invitation of Meat and Livestock Australia, representing red meat producers – cattle, sheep and goats. “In Australia and even in Canada they haven’t faced a lot of the pressures we have from animal rights groups,” Hadrick says. “It’s really just starting in the past year or so, especially down in Australia. It’s started to blow up in front of them in the last year or so.”

The Hadricks moved back to the Faulkton, S.D., area, near where Troy had grown up, and are working on developing a farming and ranching partnership with some of his cousins. Initially, they had lived in the Sturgis, S.D., area, near her family.

“We’re a diversified operation there – cow-calf and we also raise corn, soybeans, wheat and hay,” Troy says. “Probably the biggest challenge there is how do you transition an operation to the next generation? We’re trying to raise cows and kids, and telling the story of agriculture. It’s been a lot of fun.”

Some farmers are getting away from their livestock chores. Others remain on the job.

Tim Marthaler, Osakis, Minn., is a dairyman and spent about a half an hour on Thanksgiving Day spreading manure. It was in the high 40s, that morning, but dipped down into the 20s by evening.

Marhaler farms with his parents, David and Sharon Marthaler.

Did he have anything to be thankful for this year, on Thanksgiving? Any small victories?

Sure, he said. “It’s gotten better,” he said of economic conditions in his enterprise. “Milk prices have gotten better, but feed prices are high. The crops were good.” Corn yields ran in the 160- to 180-bushel range. Oat and hay crops were good.

Marthaler planned to be with the family of his wife, Tonya, at Gray Eagle, Minn., about 25 miles to the east. And another thing, Marhaler says, the couple has a new baby girl, then about three weeks old.

Now that’s something to be thankful for — another small victory.

With the North Dakota gubernatorial campaign over, you might think Democratic challenger Ryan Taylor would be done with all of the hand-shaking and smiling he’d been doing for nearly a year.

Wrong.

Taylor, seemingly as fresh as a flower on Nov. 16, was busy at the Holiday Showcase at his booth in the Fargo Civic Center, offering his “hot-off-the-presses” book, “Cowboy Logic Family Style” – another from the columns he’s syndicated in Agweek and six other publications. The non-partisan column appears in other publications, including Capital Press in Salem, Ore., Western Producer in Saskatoon, Sask., the Cattle Business Weekly in Philip, Farm and Ranch News in Boise, Idaho, and the Nebraska Fencepost in Ogallala, Neb.

 “We got done with the election, and stayed home and let our whiskers grow for a couple of days, and now we’re back at the Pride of Dakota shows. It’s the same kind of deal, we see a lot of people and still see our supporters, actually,” says Taylor, who ranches with his wife and three children at Towner, N.D.

“But now we’re trying to replace that income we gave up for the last year while we were out campaigning. I announced in late December, and have a good friend of the family – him and his wife – came out to help us on the ranch, worked for us. So yeah, we gave up almost a year’s income. I’m still doing the cattle work but they put up all the hay for us.

“We drove up and down the road, I put the gas in the car. It was worth the doing – no regrets at all, it was a good journey. But everything has to come to an end and now it’s back to everything that was always important – family.”

Taylor says the unsuccessful race itself was a “steep hill to climb,” but that his support was enthusiastic. “The folks that came out for us that knew us were really great,” he says. “That made it all worthwhile.”

Taylor continued writing his columns through the campaign, although sometimes publication content handlers allowed him to bend the deadlines a bit. “I sat down and did that high-pressure thing,” he says.

The Showcase circuit started Nov. 10, in Minot, just a few short days after the election. “I tell people, I don’t know how we lost this thing because everybody says they voted for us,” Taylor says. Then he flashes that signature grin, beneath that big brim, as if to say, I’ll be just fine, thank you.

News this afternoon from Bruce Gjovig at the University of North Dakota Center for Innovation:

Jay Schuler — a standout agribusiness entrepreneur from the Breckenridge, Minn./Wahpeton, N.D., community, has been named first Lynn Holaday Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

Here is what Gjovig says about it: The Lynn Holaday Entrepreneur in Residence program was established by an endowment from  Bart Holaday of Grand Forks and Colorado Springs to honor and remember his late wife, Lynn Buckingham Villella Holaday.   Jay Schuler of Wahpeton has been named the first Holaday Entrepreneur-in-Residence.  Schuler is a serial entrepreneur with a strong track record of success, a passion for the next generation of entrepreneurs,  and a commitment to students and entrepreneurial education.  He has been involved in 15 start-ups, the first venture, a hybrid seed company, started while in college in 1973.   On this venture, he teamed up with one of his college professors Dr. Gerhardt Fick.  Two of his companies failed and Schuler believes with better insight, better business practices and maybe an entrepreneur coach they would have made it. Five of his companies have been sold to publicly-traded companies.   In the last year, Jay and his partners sold SEEDS 2000 to a large international hybrid seed company, NuSeed, a wholly owned subsidiary of NuFarm, a publically-traded company in Australia for $55 million.   Jay still has ownership and board involvement in GIANT Sunflower seeds, Richland Organics, The Blue Corn Company, Ag America, and farming.  His sons Robert and Jason are alumni of the UND Entrepreneur Program and are leaders in GIANT Sunflower Seeds, significantly growing the venture since their UND days.  Jay respects the Center and the Entrepreneur program very much and is thankful for what inspiration and education it has provided to his sons. Schuler is an active marathon runner, running his tenth marathon on his birthday in St. Petersburg Russia. He will run one in Antarctica in March 2013. This will complete his “bucket list” of running one marathon on each of the 7 continents. Schuler ran his first marathon at the age of 50. Jay Schuler says, “I believe that for rural communities to survive and prosper, they need to create  an environment for startups to form and thrive. Every year because of regulations it is more difficult to start a new business. Progressive communities have business incubators where entrepreneurs can get help, overcome the hurdles and gain assistance in growing the businesses.” He added, “Large companies don’t move to rural areas. Jobs are home grown. For the good of our rural communities we need to keep the pipeline of new businesses growing. In my opinion, the UND Entrepreneur program is cutting edge in new business, innovation and new job development.  I look forward to continual engagement with the entrepreneur students at UND. I have done some advising and coaching of new business owners the past five years.” He concluded,  “This UND gig is a new and a more focused challenge. I look forward to giving back to the next generation of entrepreneurs.  I want to be of value to the Center, the entrepreneur program and most import the students. I believe in what UND is doing!”  Since 2001 Bart and Lynn Holaday have supported numerous hands-on learning programs with the Center for Innovation Foundation including establishing the nation’s first fully student run venture fund, the Dakota Venture Group. Thus students could learn venture capital investing through building a venture fund portfolio  The Holadays believe in learning by doing and learning from those who are experienced and successful.  The EIR endowment supports an experienced entrepreneur to reside part-time with the UND Center for Innovation to work with entrepreneur-minded students and emerging entrepreneurs.   Lynn Holaday passed away at Oct. 1, 2010 in Colorado Springs from ALS at age 68.  On New Year’s Eve 1998, she married A. Bart Holaday at Las Placitas, NM.  This was the culmination of a romance begun in the mid-1960s when Lynn was in college and Bart was a junior at the U.S. Air Force Academy.  During their marriage the couple maintained homes in Placitas, NM in Colorado Springs and in Grand Forks, while they traveled the world: all seven continents and more than 90 countries.   From the founding of their family foundation, the Dakota Foundation, Lynn served as executive director and joined Bart in support of the foundation’s mission to promote entrepreneurship and job creation in North Dakota and New Mexico, and to sponsor scholarships at Bart’s alma mater, Exeter College of England’s Oxford University..  The Air Force Academy received a $5-million contribution in 2010 through the USAFA Endowment from 1965 graduate Bart Holaday and his wife, Lynn, to construct a new indoor athletic training facility. Ground breaking was held the day of her death on Oct 1, 2010.   Bart Holaday served as Chair of the UND Center for Innovation Foundation from 2004 to 2012, and has served the Foundation since 2002. He remains on the Foundation board to support innovation, entrepreneurship, and private investment for new ventures.   He currently the president and owner of Dakota Renewable Energy Fund  which invests in early stage ventures in North Dakota. He is on the board of directors of Adams Street Partners, a private equity investment firm; Alerus Financial of Grand Forks; MDU Resources, Inc.; the United States Air Force Academy Endowment (former-chair); the Falcon Foundation (former vice president); Jamestown College, UND Foundation and is chairman and CEO of the Dakota Foundation. He is a past member of the board of directors of the National Venture Capital Association and  Walden University.  Holaday has a bachelor’s degree in engineering sciences from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was a Rhodes Scholar, earning a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Oxford University. He also earned a law degree from George Washington Law School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of North Dakota.

Al Gustin, the “dean” of agricultural broadcasters in western North Dakota, is leaving the building. And on a high note.

Gustin of Mandan, N.D., was named National Farm Broadcaster of the Year at the National Agricultural Farm Broadcasters convention in Kansas City, Mo., last week. He is retiring as director of KFYR and KBMR Radio in Bismarck on Nov. 30, after a career that has won him every honor in the book from livestock and agricultural groups near and far.

Turning age 65 on Nov. 20, Gustin says happy he won’t have to get up at 3 a.m. anymore. He’d get to work at 4 a.m. and prepare for 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. broadcasts, and through the noon hour. Gustin was often caught up in the day-to-day, but his bigger pieces on topics like farm stress, dust, and farm labor brought national recognition. Now, he’ll spend more time on the farm-ranch south of Mandan.

“There’ll be no lack of things to do,” Gustin says. “There’s more work than I have time to get done.”

EMPATHY, HISTORY

A key to Gustin’s success is his natural empathy with the region, his gentlemanly demeanor and his tireless work ethic. He comes by that honestly.

Gustin’s grandfather, Thomas, was a “German from Russia” and homesteaded before 1910. His father, Adam, established a typical, diversified farm in 1945. Al and his younger brother, Dennis, were the youngest of six children.

Al graduated from Mandan High School in 1969. He studied agricultural economics at North Dakota State University and as a junior started working part-time at the Fargo KXJB-TV Channel 4 television station, assisting the farm director. At the time, he saw it only as a job that would help him work his way through college.

Until that point, he’d thought his broad agricultural economics topic would take him elsewhere, perhaps into a farm credit career. Post-graduation, John Boler, who owned the KX network in Bismarck and Minot, made an opening for Gustin at the television station in Bismarck. He worked for KXMB for over a year and a half, starting the farm department.

He married Peggy Gunsch from Bismarck in 1968 and they had three daughters. They lived in town until the girls graduated high school, and then moved to a farm place near his brother’s. When that station sold, Gustin went to KFYR radio and television in 1970, a new specialty position for the stations. When Dennis took the farm over in 1973, Gustin continued to help, and remains a minority partner in Diamond D Gelbvieh, owning some land and cattle.

As for how he started his career started in ag broadcasting, Gustin says, “I never had the initiative to do anything else.” Regardless, he’s seen a lot, and this is how he’ll remember the decades:

AL’S AG BY DECADE

1970s – This was a “pretty good time” after the Soviet grain deal, and markets taking off. “It was an exciting time to be in ag broadcasting,” he says.

1980s– Gustin’s was discovering a broader world of trade. In 1976 he’d gone on a trade mission with North Dakota Gov. Art Link to Egypt and Jordan. In 1982 he went to Japan and China with Gov. Allen I. Olsen. “From a professional standpoint, these are things that stand out,” Gustin says. “It’s one of those things that very few people get to do.”

But farm crisis tightened its grip after 1982, and Gustin was losing neighbors. “It was so hard to try to get a handle on what was going on in the countryside. To stick a camera in somebody’s face when they’re losing their farm is a very difficult thing to do. Here was this huge story, but there was the difficulty in covering it.”

In 1987, two sociologists from Rutgers were proposing that the Great Plains be turned into a Buffalo Commons. “Now we’re the fastest-growing place in the United States,” Gustin says.

1990s – This was the decade of the emerging new generation cooperatives, with some successes. He covered the Dakota Growers Pasta Co. in Carrington, and the Northern Plains Premium Beef effort that didn’t come to fruition.

It was the beginning of the huge change in grain transportation that continues today. “When I started they were using wooden boxcars and now we’re not only into sub-terminal elevators, but farmers have gone from pickup trucks to semi-trucks” to deliver grain.

2000s – Cropping patterns are the biggest change in the past decade, Gustin says.

“Someone asked me, if you could take a picture that describes agriculture in North Dakota today, what would it be? I said it would be a very large field of corn. That’s true in western North Dakota as well as the east. The fact that it’s very large tells you what’s happened to our farms and farming practices. There might be an ethanol plant in the background. And the field would be very clean, indicating crop protection and biotechnology.”

ENCOURAGING SIGNS

He sees some encouraging signs in agriculture, including the return of younger generations to farming in good times. “It’ll be really interesting to see if those people can sustain it and be the next generation of farmers,” he says.

It’s important that while there are groups opposed to livestock interests, the internet is providing farmers and ranchers with a means to speak up. “All we have to do is be active,” he says.

In 2002 – after doing radio and television for 30 years – Gustin left and moved to Pro Radio in Bismarck. In 2004, Clear Channel Radio bought both KFYR and the Pro Radio KBMR group, and so he was again working at KFYR.

In retirement, Gustin says he’ll spend more time with his family. There will be trips to visit his daughters, and five grandchildren. Peggy remains an office manager for an accountant.

The Gustin’s Diamond D Gelbvieh operation has 300 head of registered females, and the family has a cropping operation with small grains, sunflower and corn. Sarah, 27, is Dennis’ daughter, is also a minority interest co-owner.and recently moved her own house onto the place. She’s an award-winning farm broadcaster for KX News in Bismarck.

“Uncle Al is by far the best mentor I could have ever asked for,” Sarah says. “He’s been so encouraging to me, to be a part of this business. He’s definitely someone I looked up to.”

As for his future, Gustin says he won’t disappear from the public scene all together. There may be freelance or contract opportunities. He’ll continue his “Farm Byline” column for Dakota Living Magazine. Other than that, he isn’t sure.

“I won’t prejudge anything,” he says.

Ahh, I thought. That’s one reason I admired you as a reporter.