Iowa beef producers are touting their industry throughout the month of May as part of beef month activities. The Iowa Beef Center based at Iowa State University recently conducted an economic impact study on the state’s beef industry. Center director Dan Loy says the industry has been gaining ground here in the last decade. “In the early 1980’s there was a significant loss of cattle feeding numbers in Iowa to the plains states,” Loy says, “but in the last ten years, we’ve seen a gradual steady increase of market share for cattle on feed numbers moving from the Southern Plains to the Upper Midwest.”

He says the a resurgence is due in part to the growing ethanol industry and better competitiveness with the an abundance of ethanol by-products to feed to cattle. “But then in addition to that, I think an increase demand for high quality beef is something we’ve seen nationwide. Iowa certainly backs up its reputation as a state that produces a significant number of high quality beef,” according to Loy. Loy worked with Agricultural Economist Lee Schultz and determined the state’s beef industry is responsible for generating six-point-three billion dollars in revenue for the state. “Its certainly important to the state of Iowa. It ranks among the major commodities, and in northwest Iowa, interestingly — Sioux and Lyon county alone …beef resents approximately a one billion dollars of economic activity there,” Loy says.

He says the industry is responsible for around 32-thousand jobs. “Those are the direct jobs, or direct and indirect for both the cattle and slaughter and processing,” Loy says, “but it doesn’t include the jobs that are created by cattle marketed outside the state of Iowa. About 75 percent of the cattle are marketed outside the state of Iowa. We send a lot of cattle to Nebraska and a lot of cattle to Illinois as well.”

Loy says consumer demand for beef been on the rise again in both the domestic market, and the international export trade. He says check-off dollars spent on the “Beef, its what’s for dinner” campaign has assisted with that increase of demand for beef.

(Radio Iowa)

The leader the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says some good things came out of a White House meeting on ethanol Tuesday– but there are still some things that remain unsettled. I-R-F-A executive director Monte Shaw says the reports he got on the meeting from Iowa’s two U-S Senators was positive in one area. “There was some very good news,” Shaw says, “the president did agree to authorize the sale of E-15 year-round. That was talked about before, that was stated very clearly in the meeting and even (Texas Senator) Ted Cruz tweeted about that part of the meeting accurately. So, that’s something that we can take away from this.”

Shaw says there now needs to be action on the E-15 issue. “We need to see ’em do it, they need to get that process going,” Shaw says. One of the issues that Shaw says was left unresolved is handling the credits given to refineries for blending ethanol with gasoline that are commonly known as RINS. Shaw says Senator Cruz brought up a plan to let refineries get the credits for ethanol that is exported to count toward the gallons required under the Renewable Fuels Standard.

“It’s awfully hard for me to imagine how a program like that could even function number one — let alone be good for us,” Shaw says. “If you start allowing exported gallons of renewable fuels to count toward the R-F-S, it’s just gallon-for-gallon demand destruction. Every gallon we export is a gallon they don’t have to blend here in the United States.” Shaw says the reports he’s gotten indicate things should be moving the right way for ethanol.

“From what we’ve been told, everybody in that room from the president all the way down to Ted Cruz was on the same page that the president was going to move forward on E-15 year round sales. That is excellent news,”according to Shaw. “They all agreed — despite Cruz promoting this — that there was not going to be any type of RIN cap or R-F-S waiver scheme of the type that he was promoting. That is good news,” Shaw says.

He says another issue is the ethanol exemptions that were intended to help small refineries deal with the ethanol blend mandate that were given to large refineries. Shaw says Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue and E-P-A Administrator Scott Pruit are exploring that situation and will report back. “That was I would say an outstanding discussion that was not finalized and we have to now see what E-P-A Administrator Pruit and U-S-D-A Secretary Perdue come back with . They were charged with coming up with a plan that would deal with small refinery exemptions,” Shaw says.

He says the outcome could go either way. “They could come up with a plan that we could support and that’d be great. Or they might come up with a plan that says ‘hey we’re just going to do these export RINS’ — and that would be horrible and we would oppose that. So, we’ll just have to wait and see and the story continues,” Shaw explains.

Iowa is the nation’s leader in renewable fuels production with 43 ethanol refineries capable of producing nearly four-point-four (4.4) billion gallons annually.

(Radio Iowa)