Helping to Promote Local Food & New Idaho Plant Expands

Helping to Promote Local Food & New Idaho Plant Expands plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

You’d think that at a time when consumer interest is growing regarding buying local and knowing your farmer, producers would be hitting their high marks but many producers are struggling to deliver the goods according to Susan Futrell, Dir. of Marketing for Red Tomato a non-profit helping farmers bring their product to market.

FUTRELL: Many of the farms that are positioned to meet that demand are under significant financial and development pressure. Prices for land, taxes, fuel and labor are all increasing. And at the same time they’re facing tough competition from global supply chains which pushes prices lower and it makes seasonal supply kind of a disadvantage rather than a bonus.

A Houston company is planning to produce natural gas and food-grade glycerin at a southern Idaho facility originally designed to make ethanol. Texas-based Natural Chem Holdings is now the owner of a facility in Heyburn originally developed by Renova Energy Inc. Natural Chem officials paid $2.4 million for the assets two years after Renova halted construction on the $58 million project and filed for bankruptcy. Natural Chem CEO Bob Salazar tells the Idaho Business Review the goal is to begin producing natural gas at the facility later this year. The gas would be produced from an on-site digester fueled?with byproducts from nearby cheese plants, then purified and shipped in pipelines to neighboring states. Another facility on site would produce glycerin for use in food, beverages and personal care products.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Quite a while back I mentioned the little known fact that in most states it’s considered against the law for individual landowners to collect and use rain water. These antiquated rain water laws have been under attack lately, and rightly so, given the continuing drought situation faced by so many across the U.S., and that today’s trend in society is for individual responsibility when it comes to the environment. It was obvious that counterproductive rain barrel restrictions would need to go sooner, rather than later. Legislators are well aware they will have to pass new legislation authorizing landowners to capture rainwater for outdoor and indoor use. California recently introduced just such a bill to their State Assembly; recognizing the simple fact that after facing long lasting droughts, California needs to use whatever water is at their disposal. And they’re not the only ones. Many other states are moving to allow rainwater collection. With the right to harvest rainwater though comes the responsibility of proper use and treatment of the collected rainwater by landowners and homeowners, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.