Impressions from the Conference

Impressions from the Conference. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

The Harvesting Clean Energy Conference was recently held in Boise and there was a tremendous turnout from all walks of life looking for information on clean, renewable energy. One of those conference attendees was Dick Rush, State Executive Director for the Idaho Farm Service Agency.

RUSH: It just amazed me, frankly, that there was that much interest and people would pay some money to come to Boise. My job is to support agriculture in anyway I can. That’s my background and the other thing that struck me was how many agriculture people, businesses, farmers, dairymen, cattle people, grain producers who were there

Rush was appointed to the position by President Obama and he believes Obama’s stand on energy has helped provide some of the impetus for the industry.

RUSH: I was interested that people did respond when the President said let’s reduce our alliance on foreign fuel and then when he put the Secretary of Agriculture on his energy council, not just the Secretary of Energy and others, and also a new rural council that was started - that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a big part of that.

Rush was one of those conference attendees that spent a lot of time listening to many of the presenters.

RUSH: Person after person would get up and talk about wind farms, anaerobic digesters in their dairy or beef cattle operations. A lot of agriculturalists have really kind of gotten on the bandwagon but I think what I heard, it’s not because any federal official says so, it’s because there’s a market opportunity. There’s a way to make a profit in this and most people say it really helps to get a little jump start with some federal loans or assistance of some type.

Agriculture isn’t the only sector that had a keen interest.

RUSH: Boeing company had a huge program on utilizing biofuels for jet fuel and they had a joint presentation with the U.S. Department of Defense who is also interested in jet fuel and there’s a few projects around the northwest. Part of the funded at least in part by our agency, the Farm Service Agency to produce some new crops that can be turned into not only fuel but this highly refined jet fuel.

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.