Farm and Food File

On March 1, Nebraska’s attorney gen- year lag to connect the environmental Also, while the complaint lists the amount of civil eral threw the book at AltEn, alleging the dots, the state still didn’t act until May fines (many are $10,000 per day) AltEn could be lia24 million gallon-per-year ethanol maker 2019 when the state’s Department of ble for, it doesn’t explain how the fines might be near Mead spent most of the last five Agriculture, reported the Journal Star, assessed or when they begin. years making an environmental mess of its biofuels plant and the surrounding rural community. ordered AltEn to “cease applying the solid byproduct” of the treated seed as “a soil conditioner.” Equally important to many in the surrounding community is who will pay cleanup costs if the owners of AltEn declare bankruptcy and walk away

In a 97-page civil complaint, the state Simultaneously, the state “issued the from the troubled plant and its dirty past. company a notice of violation that it was operating a solid waste management facility” — by storing the now-unusable ethanol byproduct — “without a permit.” And yet the plant continued to operate even, according to the complaint, as AltEn officials did little to comply to state demands that it address growing problems with nearly every system detailed 18 “causes of action” against AltEn ranging from “operating a solid waste management facility” (AltEn now is “storing” an estimated “84,000 tons of distiller’s grain onsite” which contain “elevated concentrations of pesticides”) to “discharge of a pollutant into waters of the state without a permit.” As explained here last month, the allegations FARM & FOOD FILE By Alan Guebert OPINION Al Davis, a rancher, former Nebraska state senator, and now a lobbyist for the Sierra Club hears that question whenever the name AltEn comes up in conversation. “It’s absolutely criminal what’s happened in Mead,” he relates in a March 22 telephone interview. “People have been complaining about the plant since 2017 and nothing was done.” stem from AltEn’s unique ethanol business. In a in the Mead facility: growing piles of tainted The state confirms that fact, too: almost half of sales pitch to potential customers last summer, it byproducts, excessive wastewater drainage, leaking the 80 or so AltEn visits by state environmental explained it was “processing 600,000 to 900,000 lagoons, and incomplete records. inspectors since 2015 occurred in January and pounds of treated seed into ethanol daily,” according to the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. Equally remarkable, the complaint doesn’t explain who AltEn is and, therefore, whom the state of February 2021. All of which seem to point to a growing, implied

That ethanol feedstock — treated agricultural Nebraska is charging with 18 different “causes of understanding between most state governments and seed instead of the usual farm-raised corn — “creat- action.” It does note that “Defendant AltEn, LLC, is Big Agbiz: If we rarely check to see if the cows are ed tens of thousands of tons of pesticide-contami- a Kansas limited liability company” and “is regis- still in the barn, don’t worry about fixing the barn nated byproduct” the plant tried to rid itself of in, tered as a foreign limited liability company in door. v what the state now alleges, manners both legal and Nebraska.” illegal. The state’s lengthy, date-filled complaint also serves a second, if unintended, function: it docu- Letter: Church showed lack of foresight ments just how neglectful Nebraska regulatory officials were in their duty to protect citizens and natural resources from the type of calamity now hitting AltEn’s rural neighbors. For example, according to the complaint, on “February 14, 2013, AltEn stated ‘Grain (mainly corn) will continue to be the primary raw material and the facility will keep the ability to produce wet To the Editor, The Back Roads article of March 12, 2021 on “Budejovice” left me feeling very sad. What a beautiful story of a gentleman’s willingness and ability to restore the 1868 church! It was apparent that he was energized physically and mentally — his cancer went into remission. The lack of foresight of the Holy Redeemer trustees to see the need for insuring the building left a serious imbalance of purpose in their thinking. All of the donation, besides the man’s health, seemed to have met with a petty lack of thought. Helen Schultz Canby, Minn. distiller’s grain and solubles… for animal feed’” Two paragraphs later, however, the state confesses it “discovered in 2015 that AltEn was using discardLetter: Hagen is a concerned citizen ed seed corn that had been treated with pesticides as To the Editor, Instead I found a citizen concerned with the socialist its feedstock… however, [it] did not know until 2018 Reading the opinion letter from Mr. Tommy Stiles direction this country is taking with little regard to that the byproducts from AltEn’s ethanol production (“Take Mr. Hagen’s Pen,” March 5/March 12) was the hard lessons of history. could contain measurable residues of pesticides.” quite the eye-opening experience. I want to thank Then I read Mr. Stiles’ letter again with the same

Even after what turned out to be a deadly, three- The Land for having the courage to print it. If the evaluation. To do so is a chilling look into what average American (democrat or republican) ever America is facing. His disagrees with Dick Hagen, wondered what we are up against, his letter erases which is fine, manages one respectable sentence, all doubt. I read Dick Hagen’s article from Jan. 29 then launches a personal assault on Dick’s characagain because I thought it was a respectable opin- ter, career and all who agree with him. When faced ion, an accurate, historical look into how all prosper- with an opinion he doesn’t like, Mr. Stiles doesn’t ous civilizations have slowly but surely deteriorated present a civilized dialog, instead he attacked and and collapsed. I read slowly, looking for the anger asked to have Dick Hagen silenced. Mr. Stiles accused him of. Nothing. I looked for division and hatred throughout Dick’s article. They should be obvious, Mr. Stiles referenced them not Please wake up. This is the power of socialism staring all Americans in the face. once, but twice. It had to be there, an old (again ref- Tom Haak erenced twice) man like Mr. Hagen is surely incapa- Wood Lake, Minn. ble of changing his ways at his age. Just one problem: I couldn’t find those things in Dick’s words.

By BRAD RACH

Director, National Farmers’ Dairy Division

How many votes could represent the majority of America’s dairy farmers in a hearing concerning federal dairy regulations? The correct answer is 10. How can that be, you ask?

To understand what’s going on, you need to know two things. The first is that more than half of America’s licensed dairy farmers belonged to one of the top 10 dairy cooperatives in 2019. The second is something called bloc voting, which allows cooperative managers to vote on behalf of all their members. It was authorized by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937.

If you want to think about that law, it might help you to have some (early)

20th century dairy farm data in mind. Here are OPINION the other extreme, the 2017 Census of some highlights: Agriculture reported 714 Cows were being milked on over 5 million farms. dairies with at least 2,500 cows. Of those dairies, 189 had over 5,000 cows. An average farm had five cows. The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 established the California, a state known for having authority of the executive branch, actlarger-than-average dairy farms, aver- ing through the Secretary of aged 10 cows per farm. Agriculture, to mandate marketing Fast forward to today. The corre- orders and promotion programs on sponding highlights are: behalf of farmers. Rules were set in Licensed dairy farms tallied up to 34,187 in 2019. place for farmers to vote their acceptance or rejection of the executive actions. All farmers are covered in the Average-sized dairy farms in the act, but I am only referring to dairy United States today have close to 200 farmers here. cows. While I generally favor marketing Most dairy farms in the United orders for dairy farmers, the bloc votStates have fewer than 200 cows. On ing provision has outlived any usefulness it may have once had. In 1937, Webinar on dry cow therapy there were millions of farmers, none having access to 21st century communications methods. “Selective Dry Cow Therapy: Which Herds, Which Cows?” headlines the National Mastitis Council’s next webinar, set for April 15, starting at 2 p.m. This free, one-hour educational offering features Volker Krömker, a professor in the University of Copenhagen’s department of veterinary and animal sciences, Frederiksberg C, Denmark. new mastitis infections or mastitis cure, and decision criteria for selective dry cow treatment. To register for this webinar, go to https://bit.ly/3r3YNIC and follow the prompts. As the webinar approaches, registrants will receive an e-mail with information on how to log in to participate. If you are an NMC member and Furthermore, dairy cooperatives were generally small and local, so the interests of one member farmer were not likely very different from those of

The April 15 webinar will focus on cannot attend the live program, you factors to consider when contemplating may access the webinar recording after selective dry cow therapy for a dairy April 30 at nmconline.org. herd and factors to consider when choosing a dry cow therapy regimen for individual cows. Key topics include practical decision making regarding For further information, contact JoDee Sattler at jdsattler@nmconline. org. drying off dairy cows, herd-specific This article was submitted by the mastitis monitoring, risk factors for National Mastitis Council. v Rob-See-Co announces NorthStar acquisition

another. Efficiency, if nothing else, could be used to justify bloc voting.

Contrast this with today when dairy farm numbers are measured by the thousands rather than the millions. The communications options available to today’s dairy farmers far exceed those of the 1930s. Add to that the sea change in cooperative size and influence — the largest cooperatives have thousands of members, representing a range of farm sizes and geographic locations that make fair representation with a single vote impossible.

The time has arrived to amend the act so all executive branch decisions must be approved in a one farmer, one vote manner by all dairy farmers whose livelihood is affected by the decision.

The Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 passed during a time when over 16 million horses and mules still powered much of agriculture’s field work. We need to bring voting provisions of the act more in line with the agricultural system that feeds us in the 21st century. v

ELKHORN, Neb. — Rob-See-Co, an independent seed company located in Elkhorn, Neb. acquired NorthStar Genetics, a Minnesota-based seed company. The acquisition enables Rob-SeeCo to expand in the soybean market and provide its expertise in the corn market to NorthStar Genetics Dealers and growers.

Rob-See-Co expects to work with all of NorthStar Genetics’ dealers and will continue to sell NorthStar Genetics brands through the 2021 growing season. In 2022, the company plans to sell solely Innotech brand soybeans, but continue to sell NorthStar Genetics corn products along with Rob-See-Co corn products. The company will operate out of Rob-See-Co’s headquarters in Elkhorn.

To learn more about Rob-See-Co, visit www.robseeco.com.

This article was submitted by RobSee-Co. v