Kent Engelbrecht serves as director of North American Biodiesel Trade Policy for ADM, one of the world’s leading biodiesel producers, oilseed crushers, and suppliers of soy and canola feedstocks for the renewable liquid fuels industry. Engelbrecht is also Chairman of the Clean Fuels America Alliance, and he is Chairman of the California Advanced Biofuels Alliance (CABA), as well as Advanced …
USDA Nominee Faces Senate Ag Committee
The Senate Agriculture Committee hosted the confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture on Thursday. Brooke Rollins is the president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute and worked in the previous Trump administration in the White House Office of American Innovation and United States Domestic Policy Council. Prior to that, she was the president …
Dr. Jonathan Wendel Receives Cotton Genetics Research Award
Dr. Jonathan Wendel, Distinguished Professor at Iowa State University was announced as the 2024 Cotton Genetics Research Award recipient last week during the 2025 Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans. Wendel, who was not present to accept the award, was selected by the Joint Cotton Breeding Committee and received a plaque with a monetary award. Dr. Wendel earned his bachelor’s …
Clean Fuels Celebrates Conference in Important Market
The 2025 Clean Fuels Conference is being held this week in a very important market for biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel – California. “Biodiesel and renewable diesel have displaced 75% of all diesel sold in the state,” said Clean Fuels CEO Donnell Rehagen in his opening remarks Tuesday. “It’s now harder to find diesel fuel in California than …
CattleCon to Feature World Without Cows Screening
What would a world without cows be like? It would certainly be a different world for the people who raise cattle, so Alltech is offering an exclusive screening of the World Without Cows documentary at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show, CattleCon. The screening will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m.– …
Conference Highlights Biodiesel, Renewable Diesel and SAF
The 2025 Clean Fuels Conference is underway in San Diego bringing together industry leaders in the biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel markets with the theme “Accelerate.” Clean Fuels Alliance America CEO Donnell Rehagen says the meeting theme refers to the rapid growth and transformative progress of the biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel industries. “We’re now a …
Farewell to USDA Secretary Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack leaves a job this week that he has held for 12 of the past 16 years, and as he goes, he says it has been both an honor and a privilege to serve. “Only one other person in the history of the country has had this job longer than I have and only five other …
Pivot Bio Expands Retail Network with Logan Agri-Service
Agtech company Pivot Bio has announced a retail distribution partnership with Illinois-based Logan Agri-Service. Through this partnership, Pivot Bio’s microbial nitrogen solution PROVEN® 40 will be available across all of Logan Ag’s locations, including Griggsville, Winchester, and Perry, O’Fallon and Bowen, IL; Paris and Knox City, Monticello and Wayland, MO; and Pittsburg, OH. “For more than seven decades, Logan Agri-Service …
Cotton Industry Facing Big Challenges
At the start of 2025, the U.S. cotton industry is facing some tough times right now, according to National Cotton Council president and CEO Gary Adams. “It’s tough from an economic standpoint for producers,” said Adams this week at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans. “We have seen costs that have increased substantially over the last several years. In …
Sec. Vilsack Bids Farewell with Climate-Smart Agriculture Rule
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack held his last official press conference of his tenure at USDA on Wednesday, announcing the publication of an interim rule on Technical Guidelines for Climate-Smart Agriculture Crops Used as Biofuel Feedstocks. The interim rule establishes guidelines for quantifying, reporting, and verifying the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the production of biofuel feedstock commodity crops …