South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem saddled up to ride into the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on horseback, then traded her real horse for a steel horse to lead the Legends Ride, an annual charitable event that is co-sponsored by the Renewable Fuels Association.

The governor appreciates RFA’s ethanol promotion efforts at the rally each year. “Ethanol is critical to our economy…it’s a priority for my administration,” she said. “I would like to see more of a focus on diversified American energy and ethanol is a big part of that.”

Governor Noem is a cattle rancher herself, so with the Cattle Industry Conference this week we asked her about one of the big issues facing the industry – what to do about the beef supply chain. “We’ve been fighting the packers for 25, 30 years and we’ve got four big packers that are controlling the market and putting a lot of profit into their pockets and it’s bankrupting our ranchers,” said Noem. “We have been working to get the Department of Justice to continue the investigation that was started under President Trump, we’re hopeful they’ll continue to do that.”