Bio-energy projects can turn agricultural waste into a valuable resource, while creating jobs for rural America, USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service Administrator Lillian Salerno said as she wrapped up a tour of sites that use agricultural products to make more than food and fiber.
Salerno visited three Midwest states this week, but pointed out that USDA has invested in bio-businesses across rural America for years and is poised to do even more.
“The new Farm Bill expands the potential for economic growth in rural America by maintaining momentum for the emerging bio-based industry and the more than 3,000 bio-based companies across the country,” Salerno said.
The investment isn’t new or strictly for big corn-growing states.
Salerno pointed to biodiesel manufacturer Down to Earth Energy in Monroe, Ga., which has been making fuel for more than a decade and received a USDA REAP grant in 2007 to expand the operation.
Myriant Technologies in Lake Providence, La., used a USDA-backed loan two years ago to begin producing 30 million pounds a year of bio-succinic acid, product that goes into fibers and detergents, but is traditionally made from petroleum products. The company planned to bring on around 50 employees to work directly in the plant.
A study completed by the USDA and Department of Energy in 2005 (and later updated) found that American farms produce a billion tons of biomass per year that might go into non-food products and create 1.7 million jobs across the supply chain.
“While I’m in a plant, I see very skilled workers take corn stover and turn it into value added products, but a truck is coming in to pick up liquid products, distributors are picking up pellets,” Salerno said. “There is an exciting energy here and it’s made in America.”
Salerno visited Quad County Corn Processors near Galva, Iowa, where workers are honing a process to turn corn kernel fibers into cellulosic ethanol. The company has received nearly $22 million in USDA Rural Development loan guarantees since it opened 13 years ago.
She also went to Laurel BioComposite in Laurel, Neb., which has a $5 million USDA loan guarantee to help turn distiller’s grain into a pellet or powder that can replace traditional petroleum-based resins in plastics manufacturing.
During the tour of bio-based projects and companies in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, Salerno hosted roundtable discussions with lenders, business owners and stakeholders to address ways USDA Rural Development can help advance job creation in rural America.
To find out more about Rural Development grants for bio-business, go to the agency’s website at www.rurdev.usda.gov.