10/12/06 NAWG to be advocate for biomass crops

10/12/06 NAWG to be advocate for biomass crops

Farm and Ranch October 12, 2006 The President of the National Association of Wheat Growers, Dale Schuler, says his organization's board of directors has voted to expand NAWG's advocacy function to include biomass crops. Schuler: "So what we are looking at is expanding our role not only in representing wheat but also looking into possibilities of being an advocate of a developing industry to help produce this biomass based ethanol industry. It would fit well for wheat producers because a lot of this biomass ethanol industry could utilize wheat straw, barley straw and maybe other dedicated biomass crops, like in some areas switch grass or other high producing forage crops that could go into these cellulosic ethanol plants." NAWG says wheat straw is seen as the most favorable feedstock for cellulosic ethanol by many in the growing industry, including Iogen, a NAWG Foundation Development member. Iogen executive vice president Jeff Passmore says they are delighted that NAWG has taken this step to represent the interest of U.S. biomass growers. Passmore says there is a real and early need to have a major grower organization focus on this agriculture activity. Iogen of course has looked at southern Idaho as a possible location for a cellulosic ethanol plant I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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