10/04/06 Wal-Mart Considers Biodiesel

Wal-Mart considers biodiesel. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Members of the Kansas Soybean Association have returned from Arkansas where they met with Wal-Mart executives about using biodiesel. Kenlon Johannes - Executive Director of the Kansas Soybean Association - was among those attending the meeting. He says discussions with Wal-Mart regarding biodiesel use are the result of a letter from a Kansas soybean producer. JOHANNES: About 5 years ago, one of our Kansas soybean farmers wrote Wal-Mart asking them to consider biodiesel in their trucking fleet because they have the largest private trucking fleet in the United States and it would be a good market for biodiesel so we went down there with representatives from the National Biodiesel Board and we've kind of been the liaison between the biodiesel industry and National Biodiesel Board to keep Wal-Mart appraised of what's going on and encouraging them to use biodiesel in their fleet. With a greater focus on "greening up" - Johannes says companies like Wal-Mart are looking at a number of ways to be more environmentally-friendly. And during these latest meetings - Johannes says that was the main focus. JOHANNES: We've met with their fuel purchasers, we've met with their maintenance people and we've met with their research people who actually have run biodiesel on test tracks and things like that but this time, this is the first time we've had somebody with that environmental twist talking to them about the fuel savings they want to have and the products they might want to use that are environmentally safe like biodiesel. But Wal-Mart is a nationwide company - and therefore wants to make changes nationwide. Therefore - Johannes notes there are still some challenges to meeting their needs - including availability. JOHANNES: We've expanded our availability of biodiesel at the pump and its on-road availability. You know a lot of it was initially developed by farmers using it off-road and in their farms but now the on-road industry is starting to get built up and once that does we are going to continue to talk to Wal-Mart to encourage them to use biodiesel. Also on Monday Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced that they were pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more staff on nights and weekends. Wal-Mart executives say they embraced the new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve customers, but some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their modest incomes and putting a strain on personal lives. Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials said part-timers now comprise 25 percent to 30 percent of its workers. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.