RFA and NFU File Separate Lawsuit Over EV Mandate

Cindy Zimmerman

The Renewable Fuels Association and National Farmers Union have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging recently finalized light- and medium-duty vehicle emissions standards.

This action is separate from the lawsuit filed last week by National Corn Growers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, and American Petroleum Institute to “ensure that ethanol producers and farmers have a strong and independent voice in the proceedings.”

RFA and NFU claim in the lawsuit that “EPA clearly lacked the authority to adopt the regulation, which essentially mandates the production of battery electric vehicles while, at the same time, ignoring other technologies—like low-carbon ethanol and flex fuel vehicles—that reduce emissions from light- and medium-duty transportation.”

“EPA grossly exceeded its statutory authority by finalizing regulations that effectively mandate the production of EVs, while blatantly excluding the ability of flex fuel vehicles and low-carbon, high-octane renewable fuels like ethanol to achieve significant vehicle emissions reductions,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “By relying on the false premise that battery electric vehicles have ‘zero emissions’ and no impact on the climate, the regulation essentially forces automakers to swiftly ramp up the production of EVs and phase out liquid-fueled vehicles that could actually deliver the same—or better—emissions reductions. America’s ethanol producers and farmers would be severely injured if EPA’s regulation were allowed to stand.”

EPA, Ethanol, RFA

Animal Ag News 6/18

Carrie Muehling

  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and University of Wisconsin–Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a world-class dairy research facility that will expand the two organizations’ long-standing partnership to tackle key issues affecting dairy farms across the country. Scheduled for completion in 2027 and administered by ARS’ U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in partnership with UW–Madison CALS, the new facility and its associated buildings will house robotic milking systems, chambers for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, an advanced animal nutrition unit and state-of-the-art laboratories for agronomy and dairy science, as well as offices and a visitor center.
  • Dr. Aspen Workman, a scientist with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), has been honored with the 2023 Arthur S. Flemming Award in Applied Science and Engineering for her contributions to the advancement of safeguarding livestock from endemic diseases and ensuring healthy and economically viable food systems and food security.
  • Deborah Okedoyin ‘24, a North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) alumna, has received the International Livestock Congress Student Fellowship for 2024.
  • The National Institute for Animal Agriculture will host the 14th Annual Antibiotics Symposium in Denver, Colorado at the Colorado State University’s SPUR Campus from November 19-21, 2024.
  • The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) hosted more than 1,000 members of Congress and congressional staff at its 40th Annual Capitol Hill Ice Cream Party—Washington’s must-attend summertime event. IDFA staff and leaders from U.S. ice cream makers served more than 950 gallons of ice cream, 1,200 ice cream novelties, and 32 ice cream cakes during the event, which was held in Union Square Park in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.
  • The 36th World Pork Expo, presented by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), hosted more than 12,000 producers and industry professionals from 37 countries at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on June 5-6. World Pork Expo is the world’s largest pork-specific trade show, with a wide range of free seminars, networking and hospitality opportunities.
  • The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) welcomed the Farm Bill framework released by Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman (R-AR). Included in the framework are top priorities for cattle producers, similar to the bipartisan House Farm Bill, such as funding to protect the U.S. cattle herd from foreign animal disease, continued support for voluntary conservation programs, and other critical food security provisions.
  • FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative is pleased to welcome Michael Richter as their newest Member Services Representative. He is based out of Rice Lake, Wisconsin and will serve members in Northwest Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. Michael comes to FarmFirst most recently from Quality Liquid Feeds, where he served as Dairy Technical Services Manager. He has also worked in various roles with Tractor Central, LLC, Kemin Industries, Inc., and Vita Plus Corporation.
  • Effective hatchery and breeder management is one of many crucial factors in a successful poultry operation. USPOULTRY’s 2024 Hatchery-Breeder Clinic will keep hatchery and breeder managers up to date on the latest technology, equipment and management techniques. This year’s program, developed by a panel of hatchery-breeder specialists, will give attendees necessary tools to help increase performance and quality throughout hatchery and breeder operations. The Clinic will be held July 9-10 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Downtown in Nashville, Tennessee.
  • KENT Nutrition Group is taking their decades-long commitment to real world solutions for swine producers to new levels with the debut of Nexgen Advanced swine feeds. This rebranded line of swine products includes all stages of animal development and combines more than a decade’s worth of performance enhancements, continuous improvements and recent research.
    • AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Animal Bites

    Bid on Beef Auction Platform Launched

    Cindy Zimmerman

    L-R: Wes Tiemann, Amanda Radke, Chris Earl, and Kody Fleeman

    A new kind of auction platform for beef sales was launched this month.

    On June 1, CK6 Consulting and Texas Beefhouse launched Bid on Beef, the vision of Chris Earl, owner of Reverse Rocking R Ranch and CK6 Consulting in New Mexico. Working with beef cattle producers across the nation, CK6 Consulting has conducted $150 million in sales through price discovery in auctions, and now the team is taking that same concept directly to the consumer.

    “The vertically integrated beef supply food chain is not working for every cattleman and woman in America,” said Earl. “We believe getting closer to the consumer retail dollar, through the free market, will directly impact ranchers’ bottomline and help create pathways of profitability back to the families we serve. Bid on Beef will carefully vet sellers on our platform, and our focus will be delivering consistently high-quality Angus and Wagyu beef to our customers. From pasture to plate, the beef will be born, raised, fed, harvested, packaged, and delivered by American cattle ranchers,”

    “Since we launched our platform on June 1, the excitement from producers and consumers alike has been tremendous,” adds Amanda Radke, Bid on Beef partner and rancher from Mitchell, S.D. “We are delighted to invite consumers to be part of the excitement of the auction tradition, and we are committed to bringing to the forefront the very best beef experience for participants on our platform. Consumer choice is a great thing, and we believe Bid on Beef will become a trusted source for American ranchers and consumers.”

    Beef, Livestock, Marketing, Markets

    ASTA Honors Industry Pioneers

    Cindy Zimmerman

    The American Seed Trade Association honored industry pioneers during the 2024 ASTA Leadership Summit this week in Nashville, Tennessee. Awardees were recognized in the following categories: Heritage, Distinguished Service, Lifetime Honorary Member, and Excellence in Science.

    The Heritage Award serves to preserve and build seed industry history by honoring and recognizing individuals who have significantly impacted the American seed industry and ASTA. Dr. Harold Loden and John Gerard are this year’s Heritage Award awardees.

    Dr. Loden (1918-2001) served as President of ASTA in 1968 and was named an Honorary Life Member in 1971, then served ASTA as Executive Vice President from 1973-1983.

    Gerard, with Seyler Seed of Plymouth, Indiana, started VR Seeds, one of the first independent soybean companies in the U.S., and later sold to AgriGenetics. He then started JGL, Inc., an elite soybean and licensing company, Seed Genetics, Inc, a corn licensing company, and JoMar Seeds, a wheat licensing company.

    The Distinguished Service Award recognizes those who have made significant contributions to the association and the seed industry. This year’s honoree is Dr. Stephanie Bloem, who has served as Executive Director of the North American Plant Protection Organization (NAPPO) since July 2015.

    ASTA’s Lifetime Honorary Member Award is one of the highest awards bestowed by the association and is in recognition of untiring service to ASTA, as well as the seed industry. This year’s awardees are Norm Poppe of Applewood Seed Company and Dr. Jim Radtke of Cibus.

    Poppe is the CEO of Applewood Seed Company, a leader in supplying high quality conservation, pollinator, and wildflower varieties, supporting conservation efforts across the country. Radtke is the Senior Vice President of Product Development at Cibus and served as ASTA’s Innovation Policy Committee Chair.

    Dr. Ric Dunkle received the 2024 Excellence in Science from the Seed Science Foundation which recognizes the outstanding achievement by a public or private researcher whose accomplishments have had an impact in the areas of Breeding Systems, Seed Quality, Seed Production and Technology, Seed Health and Pathology, Digital Agriculture, or Seed Applied Technology.

    Dunkle spent 35 years with state and federal government, including serving as the Deputy Administrator of APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine, where he oversaw USDA’s plant regulatory and trade programs related to phytosanitary issues. He served as ASTA’s Senior Director of Seed Health and Trade from 2008 until his retirement in 2023.

    Congrats to all!

    AgWired Precision, ASTA, Seed

    ZimmCast 732 – New Executive Director of NAFB

    Chuck Zimmerman

    ZimmCastI’m getting a break from the agriblogging highway after last week’s AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting in Altoona, IA. Cindy and I have worked on our calendar through the end of the year and there are quite a few more places to be around the USA.

    In this episode I have a conversation with Gardner Hatch, the new Executive Director of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB). We have known Gardner for a long time and he is a card carrying member of the ZimmComm Golden Mic Club and was the recipient of one of the first Golden Mic Awards at the Agri-Marketing Conference.

    Gardner talks about why he chose to make this career move and the NAFB 10 year strategic plan and priorities.

    Listen to the episode here:
    ZimmCast 732 - Conversation with new Executive Director of NAFB (12:51)

    That’s the ZimmCast for this week. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for listening.

    Subscribe to the ZimmCast in:

    Audio, Media, NAFB, ZimmCast

    AgGateway Publishes ADAPT Standard 1.0

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Members of AgGateway at the Mid-Year Meeting in Iowa last week were excited about the recent publication of the ADAPT Standard 1.0, a data model designed for the business-to-business transfer of agricultural production data.

    ADAPT stands for Ag Data Application Programming Toolkit and ADAPT Standard 1.0 is the successor to the AgGateway ADAPT Framework released in 2015 that served as a software plugin toolkit to read proprietary files. Unlike the earlier toolkit, the ADAPT Standard is data only and has no software dependencies.

    Stuart Rhea, Endless Wonder Consulting, has been working on the standard with AgGateway. “We simplified that model and made it language agnostic,” said Rhea. “It’s a very exciting development because it will take the already global footprint of the ADAPT framework and make it available to even more people.”

    AgGateway Chief Technology Officer Jim Wilson says the new standard sets them up for continued development. “We have an incredible set of tools, processes, production methods, ways to get developers the resources they need to get the job done in ways that make them most productive.”

    Learn more about what the publication of ADAPT Standard 1.0 means and what the future could hold in these interviews from last week’s AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting.

    Stuart Rhea, Endless Wonder Consulting 10:48

    Jim Wilson, AgGateway 5:13

    2024 AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting Photo Album

    ag retailers, AgGateway, Agribusiness, AgWired Precision, Audio, data, Precision Agriculture

    AgGateway Tackling Environmental Reporting

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Environmental reporting is becoming a major challenge for the agricultural industry and AgGateway is planning to take on that challenge at the annual meeting in November.

    “We’re putting a real focus on the next six months of identifying the people doing this environmental reporting and helping growers,” said AgGateway Executive VP & COO Jeremy Wilson. “We’re going to have at least one session to talk about the core data we have to collect … and how do we help growers get all that reporting completed.”

    Wilson says that will probably lead to the formation of a working group to help streamline the process and make it easier to collect the data.

    Learn more in this interview with Wilson from last week’s AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting.

    Jeremy Wilson, Interview 4:16

    2024 AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting Photo Album

    ag retailers, AgGateway, AgWired Precision, Audio, data

    Industry Ag News 6/14

    Carrie Muehling

  • G&S, an award-winning independent agency, has acquired Morgan & Myers, Inc., dba MorganMyers, expanding its leading position in agribusiness marketing and increasing its portfolio of food and CPG brands. The MorganMyers team brings significant expertise and relationships with industry-leading clients in agricultural production and technology, farm and commodity organizations, as well as food and beverage. The firm has a 42-year history of success that reflects the team’s passion for award-winning strategy, creativity, innovation and the ability to help clients create meaningful brand connections. Moving forward, it will be a wholly owned subsidiary of G&S and go to market as MorganMyers, a G&S Agency.
  • The World Food Prize Foundation announced the selection of six interns for the prestigious George Washington Carver (GWC) Internship program for the Summer of 2024. Since its inception in 2001, the GWC Internship program has impacted over 350 students worldwide.
  • Agri-Pulse is pleased to announce that Chloe Lovejoy is joining the media company’s editorial team as an associate editor, based in Sacramento. She will work with Brad Hooker to expand daily, weekly and special project coverage in California.
  • The International Agri-Center, World Ag Expo, and the Central Valley Toyota Dealers presented a check in the amount of $101,457.32 to Valley Children’s Healthcare during the All Guild Picnic held on May 22nd, in Madera, California. The donation marks another impactful milestone in the ongoing partnership, which began in 2015. Since then, over $730,000 has been raised to support Valley Children’s Healthcare.
  • From June 25-28, the National FFA Organization will be hosting its summer Next Gen Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The topic of the conference is “Food Products and Processing Systems” and high school student attendees will learn through informational sessions, panels and tours.
  • The Renewable Fuels Association is excited to welcome CF Industries and Separator Technology Solutions (STS) to its expanding group of associate members. The new members reflect RFA’s continuous commitment to growing its network of leading organizations and businesses driving technological innovation and environmental progress in the renewable fuels sector.
  • Rollin’ on the River is the theme for the 2024 Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Savannah, Georgia July 17-19. The three-day event provides farmers with information about peanut production, legislative issues, marketing and promotions.
  • The next 30 days is the last opportunity to lock in your early bird pricing and hotel block rate for Agricultural Media Summit. Join us in Kansas City, MO, from August 3-6 to build connections, sharpen your skills and advance your career.
  • The National Corn Growers Association’s (NCGA) Corn Board has elected Jed Bower, of Washington Court House, Ohio, as the organization’s next first vice president for the new fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2024.
  • The American Sugar Alliance joined together with Ducks Unlimited, National Cotton Council, U.S. Rice Producers Association, Farm Credit Council, and Purina ahead of the Congressional Baseball Game to celebrate the strength and resilience of the winning team of farm families who help feed our nation. Founded in 1909, the Congressional Baseball Game brings together members of Congress and fans for a bipartisan game that raises money for local charities.
  • The 2024 American Agri-Women (AAW) Fly-In, a groundbreaking event that brought together women from across the agricultural and natural resource industries, took place in the nation’s capital. The AAW Fly-In was opened to all women in these fields for the first time in its history, offering a unique platform to engage with legislators, agencies, and professionals on critical agricultural issues and policies.
    • Zimfo Bytes

    AgGateway and ICAR Working Together

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Daniel Lefebvre, President, ICAR, and Brent Kemp, President and CEO, AgGateway

    Representatives from AgGateway and the International Committee on Animal Recording (ICAR) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) designed to improve digital interoperability in animal agriculture applications. ICAR is a leader in livestock identification and associated data exchange.

    AgGateway has been facilitating a member working group around traceability data needs for feed inputs to dairy herds and member Phil Kibosh with Vita Plus says the MOU will allow the working group to maximize member value and build upon work already done. “ICAR does a lot of standards in Europe from a production animal standpoint,” said Kibosh. “Obviously AgGateway does standards in the U.S. and it was a good idea for the two entities to join forces.”

    Learn more in this interview.
    Phil Kubesh Interview 2:12

    2024 AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting Photo Album

    AgGateway, AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, data, Livestock

    Farmers, Car Dealers and Oil Companies Sue Over EV Push

    Cindy Zimmerman

    An unlikely coalition of farmers, car dealers, and the oil industry have joined together to push back against the push for mandated electric vehicles.

    The National Corn Growers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation and six auto dealers representing 16 brands and collectively operating dozens of dealerships in major markets across the country joined the American Petroleum Institute today in filing a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s light-duty and medium-duty vehicle emissions standards for model years 2027-2032. The groups said EPA exceeded its congressional authority with the regulation and rendered a decision that values one tool for fighting climate change over others.

    NCGA and AFBF argue that the emissions standards, which require 68% of new passenger vehicles and 43% of new medium-duty trucks and vans to be electric by 2032, “ignore the proven benefits corn ethanol offers in reducing greenhouse gas emissions” and will hurt farmers by driving up the cost of farm vehicles and forcing farmers to “rely on a charging network that does not yet exist in rural areas.”

    AFBF, Corn, EPA, Ethanol, NCGA