Renewable Energy from the Ground Floor

Renewable Energy from the Ground Floor. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. We talk to a lot of people about renewable energy that work on the business side of things whether it's legislative or manufacturing. But what about the end user? Bill Warren is the manager and co-owner of Warren Orchards in Dayton, Washington and feels that he has a place in the energy picture. WARREN: I think my main place with renewable energy right now is trying to get renewable energy into farmer's thoughts and getting them to start thinking about it and to understand that maybe agriculture can produce renewable energy in one form or another. Warren talks about getting his operation into the renewable ring. WARREN: Well our project actually started about 2004-2005 when commodity prices were really low and we were looking for alternative crops to grow and we could make a profit at and our Farm Bureau had formed a committee and we were looking at biodiesel at that time and that's really where my roots got started in renewable energy. Wheat and orchards have been what they banked on for a number of years but as times change there was a need to look at other paths. WARREN: Well my angle is looking firstly at rural development. Our project really started because we were looking at trying to find a business that would replace the Seneca facility in Dayton when it began to close down. It was a more regional facility and we were looking for something that had the regional niche that could replace that. So ultimately it's rural development first and then we look at energy security a little bit and just trying to reduce our independence on foreign oil ad what can agriculture do? Finally Warren says that there is a future for farmers in the renewable energy field but it's important to lay good groundwork. WARREN: We've kind of gone through a honeymoon period with canola and the economics are challenging on that as it is. We have got crushers in the Walla Walla valley now. We've got a crusher at Touchet, we've got Genex here in the Tri-Cities that's starting to take off and Genex Energy group. We have some projects that are starting to take off and identify themselves and they're really getting established here in the northwest. There's a future but we have to build a future that's sustainable that does a good job at managing risks. We don't want to build an industry that's here today and gone tomorrow. We want an industry that we can depend on. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org