They expected an announcement at last week’s 2024 Commodity Classic convention, the annual gathering of U.S. corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum growers.

But that didn’t happen. U.S. secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack told growers the government needs more time to sort things out.

He said the announcement will come in a matter of weeks rather than months.

Vilsack did deliver some good news for growers.

“I’m confident now that indeed the GREET model will be part of the guidance that will be provided by Treasury,” he said.

GREET is an acronym for the Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation lifecycle model for assessing greenhouse gas emissions.

It is a model developed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

American corn farmers are relieved that GREET will be one of two models available for determining which feedstocks are eligible for the lucrative SAF tax credits contained in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.

The other model is the European International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) model.

“Corn would never qualify under that model,” said Harold Wolle, president of the National Corn Growers Association.

“That’s why we’re supporting the GREET model.”

There is a lot at stake because the SAF tax credit amounts to US$1.25 per gallon for each gallon of SAF in a qualified mixture.

The U.S. government has set a target of having three billion gallons of domestic SAF production by 2030, up from 10 million gallons today.

Most of the biofuel buzz in agricultural markets has surrounded soybean oil being used to make renewable diesel.

However, Wolle said the SAF market for corn ethanol could be massive as well.

He noted that corn ethanol is selling for about $1.50 per gallon in the U.S. versus the typical gas price of $3 per gallon, so it is a very competitive fuel on its own accord.

Soybean-based renewable diesel is far more expensive than conventional diesel by comparison, so it is a market that is completely reliant on tax credits.

Wolle also noted that it takes about 1.6 to 1.7 gallons of ethanol to make one gallon of jet fuel, so that three-billion-gallon market for SAF is even bigger than it sounds.

Vilsack said he is keen on ensuring that as many feedstocks as possible qualify for SAF production.

He said it took a lot of convincing by him and others to ensure that the SAF Interagency Working Group understood the importance of embracing the GREET model.

The next step is ensuring that the working group uses the most current data to make sure the GREET model concludes that corn ethanol meets the threshold of reducing lifecycle GHGs by at least 50 percent.

“It’s complicated and we’re working through it,” Vilsack told reporters following his speech to delegates.

Wolle said the U.S. corn industry desperately needs a new source of demand because right now there is too much supply of the crop, which is causing prices to crash.

“It’s the bright, shiny light on the horizon,” he said.

“We need to have more usages for corn.”

That is why he wants Vilsack and other government leaders to get it right rather than rushing the decision.

—Sean Pratt writes for the Western Producer.

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Glacier FarmMedia — U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack says the United States is trying to regain its competitive edge in world agricultural markets.

He told delegates attending the 2024 Commodity Classic conference that for many years the U.S. had better transportation logistics than its competitors and that gave the country a price advantage in overseas markets.

But that competitive advantage has evaporated due to large infrastructure investments by Brazil and Argentina.

“That price difference over time has disappeared,” said Vilsack.

It’s why the U.S. “doubled down” with the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure deal in 2021, a bill that will result in improved roads and bridges, ports and locks and dams.

But those investments will take time to come to fruition. In the meantime, the U.S. is going to attempt to boost exports through increased funding of export promotion programs, said Vilsack.

Todd Hultman, lead analyst for DTN, told farmers that spot corn futures will likely trade in the range of $4 to $5.25 per bushel in 2024-25, while soybeans will likely bounce around between $11 and $14 per bu.

His colleague John Baranick, DTN’s ag meteorologist, told U.S. growers to expect a hot spring and summer.

He is forecasting wet spring conditions in the northern and eastern portions of the country, while the summer will by dry throughout much of the Plains region.

Arlan Suderman, chief economist with StoneX, said Brazil’s soybean crop is getting bigger.

The company surveyed its farmer customers in that country, and they indicated that the crop could be 151.6 million tonnes, up 1.2 million tonnes from its previous forecast.

Corn production is pegged at 124.5 million tonnes, unchanged from the previous forecast, considering growers just finished planting the second crop of corn.

Suderman said a lot of those Brazilian soybeans will be heading to China, which appears to be stockpiling a wide variety of crops.

“So why are they buying?” he said during a live taping of the U.S. Farm Report at the 2024 Commodity Classic.

One theory is that the government is buying a large amount of corn and other crops from its growers to prop up domestic prices.

That is also creating an inviting environment for imports. But those imports are increasingly being supplied by Brazil and Ukraine, while U.S. crops are slowly being squeezed out, said Suderman.

Chip Flory, editor emeritus of Pro Farmer and host of AgriTalk, wonders if China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan.

Suderman thinks that is a distinct possibility. Chinese president Xi Jinping has stated that he is going to bring Taiwan back into the fold during his tenure in office and he is 70 years old.

Flory wonders if the political landscape is setting up for another trade war between China and the U.S. if Donald Trump is re-elected as U.S. president.

If that happens, growers should prepare for another round of direct subsidies to offset the loss of that market.

Carah Hart, president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting, spoke about the threat that electric vehicles pose to radio broadcasters.

Car manufacturers say electromagnetic interference in electric vehicles causes static and limited coverage with AM radio.

Despite mitigation solutions, some EV manufacturers have stopped putting AM radios in their cars.

Hart said that is having a huge detrimental impact for farm broadcasters around the country.

She encouraged delegates attending the general session of the Commodity Classic to support the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which would require access to AM broadcast stations in motor vehicles.

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The inquiry stems from the Biden administration’s July 2021 executive order to promote competition across the U.S. economy, the agency said in a release Friday.

Global supply chain problems and inflation have sent fertilizer and other farm input prices soaring, limiting farmers’ ability to capitalize on decade-high grain prices. Fertilizer is expected to be even more scarce as global markets shun Russia, a fertilizer exporter to North and South America, following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

“Concentrated market structures and potentially anticompetitive practices leave America’s farmers, businesses, and consumers facing higher costs, fewer choices and less control about where to buy and sell, and reduced innovation — ultimately making it harder for those who grow our food to survive,’ Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in the release.

Vilsack said in February that he hoped that fertilizer and agricultural input supply companies would not take advantage of the crisis in Ukraine to push already high prices higher.

The Iowa attorney general’s office is also investigating high fertilizer prices. Prices for urea and potash are up more than 200 per cent since January 2021 and liquid nitrogen is up 290 per cent, the office said in February.

USDA will collect comments for 60 days.

The Department also announced a US$250 million grant to support “independent, innovative and sustainable American fertilizer production.”

— Leah Douglas reports on U.S. agriculture and energy policy for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

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Bibeau met in Washington on Thursday with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, after shipments of P.E.I. fresh potatoes to the United States halted in November over U.S. concerns about potato wart.

Bibeau said Vilsack agreed to ask the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to conduct a risk analysis of P.E.I. potatoes to Puerto Rico within two weeks, and a risk analysis for the mainland United States in the weeks after that.

“It gave us a lot of hope,” Bibeau told Reuters. “Considering that our Canadian scientists are so confident (about safety), we think that the American scientists should come to the same conclusion.”

Table potatoes are those meant for human consumption without processing. Bibeau said it would take longer to resolve concerns about potatoes for processing and planting.

Potato wart can decrease crop yields but poses no threat to human health.

Vilsack’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Farmers in P.E.I. this year expected to sell $120 million worth of potatoes, some 300 million pounds, to the United States.

But within a week, farmers will begin destroying potatoes to prevent them from rotting, said Greg Donald, general manager of the P.E.I. Potato Board.

“Folks have just been hanging on, hoping that there will be a change in the border situation,” he said.

The United States has not detected potato wart since the 1970s, said Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council.

U.S. East Coast farmers and processors rely on P.E.I. for seed and fresh potatoes, Quarles said. At U.S. cold-storage facilities in the New England region, potato supplies dropped by 29 per cent to 29.2 million pounds over the year through Dec. 31, USDA data shows.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Leah Douglas in Washington.

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CFIA on Thursday reported it has completed this fall’s national survey for the soil-borne fungal potato disease “ahead of schedule.” The survey involves soil testing in areas of Canada that grow seed potatoes, and potato wart “was not detected.”

The survey results come as export certificates remain suspended for fresh P.E.I. potatoes otherwise bound for the U.S., following the confirmation of potato wart in October in two P.E.I. processing potato fields.

Canada said it agreed to temporarily suspend those certificates Nov. 21 at the request of U.S. officials — on threat of a U.S. federal order prohibiting import of fresh potatoes from P.E.I., which CFIA said Thursday would be “very challenging to overturn.”

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Nov. 23 his department would work with CFIA as the Canadian agency “delimit(s) the infestation and trace(s) the sources so that appropriate mitigation measures can be imposed and trade restrictions relaxed.”

The survey’s “expedited completion” is a major step for Canada to reassure international trading partners of the safety of Canadian seed potatoes, CFIA said Thursday.

The United States is also seeking that information in its “ongoing review” of CFIA’s containment and control of potato wart in Canada, the agency added.

Evidence gathered from the survey and forwarded Thursday to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) “should serve to provide reassurances they need that it is safe to resume the trade of fresh potatoes.”

APHIS, CFIA said, also wants Canada’s current probe into recent detections of potato wart on P.E.I. to show “appropriate mitigation measures and an ongoing monitoring plan for a clearly defined quarantined area.”

APHIS had said last month the detection of potato wart in the two P.E.I. potato fields in October and “a confirmed detection on a separate P.E.I. farm in 2020” indicated the potato wart pathogen “is present in areas not previously known to be infested.”

Data such as the national survey results are a step to assure that trade in potatoes from non-quarantined fields is safe and of no risk to pest-free areas, CFIA said.

“The CFIA stands firm that, based on the science, the risks associated with the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes remain negligible when appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place.”

Before the findings in October, potato wart had appeared in 33 fields in P.E.I. since 2000. A plan was put in place in 2001 with the agreement of the U.S. government, allowing exports from lower-risk zones in the province where the fungus hasn’t been detected and where the same equipment wasn’t used.

With P.E.I. potatoes now cut off from the U.S. market, the federal government on Monday announced $28 million to help redistribute now-surplus potatoes to food banks across Canada and dispose of further surplus production. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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