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Nebraska farmer is elected to help lead national commodities group

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Brandon Hunnicutt

A Hamilton County farmer will serve on the board of directors of the National Corn Growers Association.

Brandon Hunnicutt attended the Corn Congress in Washington D.C. last week and heard from the ambassador to Mexico, a nation that buys vast amounts of U.S. corn and dried distillers grains, a byproduct of the ethanol-making process.

“Just realizing the trade partnership we have with Mexico,” Hunnicutt says, “and how important it is for both countries to make sure that at the end of the day that we have something that works for agriculture is of vital importance.”

Hunnicutt says the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, has been good for America’s corn growers, and only minor adjustments are needed through the treaty’s renegotiation.

“For agriculture, it’s been a great win,” Hunnicutt says. “With NAFTA, we need to go in there and tweak some things. The references made to NAFTA 2.0. That’s a great way to look at it. Any negotiation, anything you’ve done, after so many years, there’s always things you can go back because things have changed, what can we do to make it better.”

He says fostering strong relationships is the key to a successful trade agreement with Mexico or any other country.

“It seems like so much of this is, whether we’re dealing with congressmen or with trading partners, it’s all about relationships,” Hunnicutt says. “Even in those times when we disagree on some issues, making sure that we keep those lines of communication open is very important.”

Hunnicutt’s term on the National Corn Growers board will start October 1st.

By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

 

Opposition grows as more wind energy projects come online

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New wind power projects are still appearing across the region as Nebraska utilities work to boost the amount of electricity they get from renewable sources.

Opposition to those projects is also growing. Lucas Nelsen, a policy program associate with the Lyons-based Center for Rural Affairs, says there are reasons for those objections.

“We’re seeing more opponents but that’s also because we’re seeing more wind development,” Nelsen says. “As wind continues to get cheaper, as it gets easier to build more efficient turbines and as the technologies become more efficient, we’re going to see wind in more places than we used to which means people that have never dealt with wind energy are going to experience it more often.”

Nelsen says people who oppose wind projects have to be careful that they don’t choke off all new development.

“The bigger issue is making sure the siting and the zoning are compatible with development and the desires of residents,” Nelsen says. “It’s a weird balance we have to strike. We have to be careful we’re not making zoning so strict that we can’t develop any wind energy anywhere. It’s a really valuable source of development for rural communities.”

Nelsen says developers who seek to build large wind farms could also do a better job at the front end.

“Go in early. Talk to the community. Make sure you’ve answered their questions and that you know what their concerns are,” Nelsen says. “When you know what their concerns are, you can begin trying to figure out, how can we address these? What are the solutions we can identify?”

Nelsen says wind power projects can bring tax revenue, new families and new business to rural areas.

By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

Power demands near record peak as heat indices climb toward 115 degrees

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This is shaping up to be the hottest week of the year and some Nebraska utilities are approaching all-time highs for peak demands.

Beatrice Electric superintendent Pat Feist says electricity demand is heavy, as residents deal with the temperatures near 100 and humidity at near 50% in the mid-afternoon hours.

Feist says during a typical summer day, when temperatures are in the upper 80s to low 90s, electric demand in the city is usually between 32 and 34 megawatts. Wednesday afternoon, they reached 38 megawatts, which isn’t far from the all-time record of 39.

There are roughly 4,800 load control units on local water heaters and air conditioners. Under the automated system during very hot stretches, those appliances can be remotely turned off in seven-minute intervals, each half-hour.

Feist says aside from load control management, customers can do their part by avoiding heavy use of appliances, especially between the hours of 3 and 8 PM. He says if you can curtail use during that period, it does help.

By Doug Kennedy, KWBE, Beatrice

 

Long dry spell prompts emergency declaration from Gov. Ricketts

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State officials are hoping to prevent grassfires.

The following news release is from the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency:

Lincoln, NEB— The Governor’s Office has issued an Emergency Proclamation associated with abnormally dry conditions in Nebraska. This proclamation activates provisions of the State Emergency Operations Plan and will allow the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency to address unmet needs caused by dry conditions and the resulting wildfire activity.

“Wildfires this spring have reduced some of the resources used to suppress wildfires,” NEMA Assistant Director Bryan Tuma said. “State and local officials have expressed concern about both dry conditions and the need for resources that will quickly mitigate wildfire outbreaks.”

The emergency proclamation allows NEMA to replenish the state’s inventory of fire retardant material used in the Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT) during aerial fire suppression flights.  It also allows the adjutant general of Nebraska, Daryl Bohac, who is also NEMA’s director, to activate elements of state government and emergency management resources to deal with the emergency and to use funds from the  Governor’s Emergency Fund should a wildfire start anywhere in the state.

“As a member of the Great Plains Interstate Forest Fire Compact and the Emergency Management Assistant Compact, we have been called upon to use our resources and equipment to aid with firefighting in other states already this season,” Tuma said. “And while we will recoup those costs at the end of the fire season, we need to make sure our inventory stays at adequate levels for the rest of the fire season. This proclamation give us even greater flexibility regarding wildfire suppression as the dry conditions increase.”

On health care, Cong. Smith says he’s not giving up on the Senate

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Congressman Adrian Smith

With the failure of the latest “Repeal and Replace” bill in Congress and the proposal to just repeal the Affordable Care Act dead on arrival, the question now is whether the GOP-controlled Senate can come through on health care.

Nebraska 3rd District Congressman Adrian Smith says he hasn’t given up on the Senate yet.

“We had some delays on the House side before we ultimately got our bill done,” Smith says. “The fact of the matter is, doing nothing is not an option. That doesn’t mean we just do something for the sake of doing something. We need to understand that no bill will be perfect and we can’t expect to fix everything with one vote.”

Smith says he’s confident the Senate knows it cannot allow the status quo to continue.

He understands the frustration with the Senate process, but also knows it can be slow for a reason and it needs to be played out in full.

“They operate differently and that’s by design,” Smith says. “Oftentimes, we don’t let the process work enough and if we utilize the process that was set up long before any of us were around, I think we can come up with more solutions.”

Two more Republican senators announced Monday they won’t support the party’s effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Senate leaders intend to bring up the version of a new health care bill that passed in the House months ago.

Thanks to KLIN, Lincoln

 

Legislators call on AG Peterson to rescind DACA lawsuit

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Sen. Adam Morfeld

Twenty state senators are putting their names on a letter to Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson asking him to rescind his support for a lawsuit that would repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA.

Lincoln Senator Adam Morfeld says he’s talked to Nebraska employers and what they want is the talent pool that DACA recipients provide.

“We’re seeing workforce shortages across the country in skilled fields and if you talk to some of these young immigrants who are working hard, going to school, some of them have parttime jobs, sometimes fulltime jobs on top of their studies,” Morfeld says, “you will see these are the folks, just like our grandparents, just like our parents, who have come over and really made America what it is, an industrious country of immigrants.”

Morfeld says this is why the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, The Nebraska Farm Bureau and the Nebraska Cattlemen all support DACA.

Thanks to KLIN, Lincoln

 

Member of new state trade group ready to seek out opportunity

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Nebraska Farm Bureau president Steve Nelson is among the first appointees to Governor Pete Ricketts’ new International Trade Council.

Nelson says one of the council’s goals is to build on relationships with Nebraska’s global customers.

“Nebraska has worked hard for a long time to continue to develop those trade relationships that are so important in many parts of the world,” Nelson says. “This is an opportunity to raise to a higher level that importance. That’s something Governor Ricketts understands very well.”

Agricultural, business and education groups are all represented on the panel. Nelson says having all three entities involved is a good way to expand the state’s reach into international markets which generate billions of dollars a year.

“It really does all go together, business, agriculture, it’s really all one in Nebraska,” Nelson says. “From our trading partners’ perspective, it makes a lot of sense, too, because when they look at doing business with Nebraska, they’re looking oftentimes at agricultural-related kinds of things.”

Nelson says one of the first priorities for the council is pushing ahead with a bilateral trade deal with Japan.

“The governor’s planning a trade mission to Japan later this year,” Nelson says. “That’s a very good thing to be looking at. There’s lot of other components to that trade mission as well, but certainly from the farmer/rancher perspective, that opportunity to increase trade with Japan in the area of beef is very, very important.”

Governor Ricketts says council members will use their existing relationships to help other Nebraska groups that want to expand overseas.

By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

 

Old tractor finds new home at Homestead National Monument

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Dr. Frerichs and the tractor

An Allis Chalmers tractor used in Alaska by the nation’s last homesteader under the Homestead Act of 1862 has arrived at the Homestead National Monument west of Beatrice.

Its recovery from the homestead of Kenneth Deardorff was made possible by a donation from Dr. C.T. Frerichs of Beatrice and the Friends of the Homestead.

Dr. Frerichs wanted to acquire the tractor in the memory of his wife, Julia. She came to Beatrice from Georgia, sat on the seat of a similar tractor, and became Frerich’s wife.

Frerichs thanked Homestead National Monument of America superintendent Mark Engler, Friends of the Homestead president Diane Vicars and David Hendee, author of an Omaha World-Herald story regarding the tractor’s discovery and efforts to recover it.

Vicars says the tractor is significant for being part of a decades-long history of homesteading.

Before going on display at the monument’s Heritage Center, Engler says the 1945 Model-C will first go to the Lester Larsen Tractor and Power Museum, where University of Nebraska students will do conservation treatment work on the machine.

Engler said the goal is to maintain the appearance of the tractor as it was being used and to demonstrate the role of the tractor in homesteading.

Rob Ruskamp, of the Homestead National Monument, led the team that traveled to Alaska to recover the tractor and to prepare it to be helicoptered off the Deardorff’s homestead. It was placed on a barge and shipped to Anchorage, to Seattle, then was trucked to Nebraska.

Homestead officials anticipate the tractor will be returned to the National Monument in late fall to go on display inside the main entrance of the Heritage Center.

Story and photo by Doug Kennedy, KWBE, Beatrice

 

Central Nebraskan are asked to evaluate region’s strengths, weaknesses

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Residents in 14 central Nebraska counties have a chance to shape their economic future through a series of hearings and surveys.

The Central Nebraska Economic Development District, based in Chambers, is collecting surveys and will hold town hall meetings on the region’s future plans.

District executive director Judy Peterson says they want to update their efforts.

“We’re putting together a comprehensive economic development strategy,” Peterson says. “Part of it is required through the funding we receive from the Department of Commerce but it’s also a good practice for us to be in touch with our region, what are the needs, what are the trends.”

The survey is done every five years. Peterson says they want to get a pretty complete picture of their region.

“It’s a comprehensive survey of what the needs are, what do we have,” she says. “It’s not just what do we need. It’s what do we have in our region, what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, opportunities and threats.”

Peterson says the survey is available online and it’s being dropped in the mail.

“We have started by sending out surveys to each and every county and community in our region,” she says. “We’re also sending out surveys to realtors, lenders and insurance agents, our economic development, our chambers of commerce, so we can start gathering that information.”

After the surveys are returned, Peterson says they will hold a town hall meeting in each county, starting later this month and extending into September.

By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

 

 

 

 

 

Nebraska’s suit against Syngenta over GMO corn set for 2018

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Trial dates are now set for next year in Nebraska and six other states in class action lawsuits targeting agri-business giant Syngenta.

Numerous suits are filed over the release of Viptera corn without Chinese import approval. Ag law specialist Kristine Tidgren says the next big trial is next month.

“We have a Minnesota class action for farmers from Minnesota but we also have consolidated up there about 60,000 individual claims from farmers who had individual representation,” Tidgren says. “That’s going to be the next big verdict, I think, that we hear.”

In June, Syngenta lost a 218-million dollar jury verdict involving Kansas farmers. Syngenta says it will appeal that decision, but Tidgren says the outcome of the Minnesota trial could cause Syngenta to re-evaluate its strategy.

“If you have another trial and you have a pretty devastating verdict against Syngenta, that would definitely up the ante for settlement,” Tidgren says.

Syngenta recently settled with an individual Nebraska farmer who sued the company for damages. Syngenta said the settlement does not represent a change in strategy for the company.

The company says it will continue to fight the various lawsuits and “defend the rights of farmers to have access to safe and effective U.S. seed technologies.”

Syngenta won a victory in June when an Ohio court dismissed a Viptera lawsuit filed on behalf of an Ohio ethanol plant.

In addition to Nebraska, class-action lawsuits are also planned for next year in: Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota and Ohio.

The suits claim Syngenta, by rushing its Viptera corn to market, contributed to a significant drop in corn prices in 2013 when China rejected shipments of U.S. corn containing the GMO trait. Syngenta says those claims are “without merit.”

Tidgren is assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University.

Thanks to Ken Anderson, Brownfield Ag News