SD Corn

Corn Comments Podcast with Jim Woster.

South Dakota Corn is excited about the new dairy processing facility coming to Brookings, South Dakota. What a great addition to the city, state and ag community. South Dakota State is home to one of two dairy manufacturing education opportunities in the nation and many say it could be the best. What a great opportunity for SDSU students who not only will have a state-of-the-art learning facility, but also a brand new industrial plant to learn and excel on a professional level.

This news is not only great for students, but also our dairymen and farmers providing milk and feed to make it all possible.

Each dairy cow has an estimated $14,000 ripple effect on the state’s economy. Ag’s overall impact on the state is around $22 billion as it continues to be South Dakota’s number one industry.

By now I’m sure you and four million other people have seen Chipotle’s, Back to the Start video featuring the famous vocals of country singer, Willie Nelson.  The advertisement is well done but the message completely misses the mark of reality in regards to food policy.

Eating fresh, local food is great, but it’s simply not possible to meet the demands of our current population totaling over seven billion, let alone our future population that is growing at around 200,000 people a day worldwide.

Let’s be realistic, farmers and ranchers are trying to maximize their productivity to meet the world’s demands, but that does not mean the food they produce is any less healthy nor are their practices any less environmentally friendly. Centuries of technology, research and science have gone into creating an agricultural industry that cultivates the safest, most abundant, nutritious and least expensive food in the entire world. And not only does that food supply feed our nation, but many others as well. Those increases in productivity have allowed America to set export records with corn, soybeans, beef, pork and other commodities feeding more people than ever before.

Going “back to the start,” as the marketing promotion says only puts a global food supply at risk, which inevitably leads to additional starvation, malnutrition and human suffering.

More importantly than ever, our farmers need to prepare for the future, which will demand that our farmers produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have produced in the last 10,000 years combined.

15 ethanol plants in South Dakota generate large amounts of economic activity boosting rural communities all across the eastern half of the state. Those ethanol plants employ more than 900 people who help produce over one billion gallons of clean-burning, renewable corn ethanol.

Those same plants, which are also mostly owned by South Dakotans, purchased over 360 million bushels of corn raised in South Dakota during 2011 providing additional markets to our producers.

 But clean-burning fuel isn’t the only product these plants produce. In 2011, South Dakota produced approximately 2.9 million metric tons of distillers grain, a high-protein livestock feed which partially displaces the need for corn and/or soybean meal. DDGs displaced around 26 million bushels of corn for feed last year in South Dakota alone. The state exported around 2.2 million metric tons of the co-product providing feed to nations around the world.

Some plants are also collecting corn oil in the process which can be used in biodiesel production.

As South Dakota continues to grow more and more corn, the ethanol industry will remain an important part of our state creating and sustaining green jobs, competition in the grain markets, livestock feed supplies and a reliable source of clean-burning fuel made right in our own backyard.

The South Dakota Corn office is relocating within Sioux Falls.

From here..

To here..

New office address:

4712 S. Technopolis Drive

Sioux Falls, SD 57106

Office phone and fax numbers along with office emails will all remain the same but may down during the next couple of days.

Corn Comments Podcast with Jim Woster.

No-till acres continue to grow in South Dakota by leaps and bounds, from 30,000 acres in 1990 to 5 million in 2010. Their are multiple benefits to no-till including reduced runoff and erosion, increased organic matter and carbon sequestration in the soil.

Because of no-till’s growing popularity, South Dakota Corn has dedicated one day of GrowingOn Part 2 specifically to no-till and strip-till practices with Kevin Kimberley of Kimberley Ag Consulting on February 15th at the Sioux Falls Convention Center starting at 9am and running until 4pm. The seminar is FREE but you must pre-register either online or by calling the office at 605-334-0100.

Ag Phd’s Brian Hefty shares some insight on the benefits of drainage tile after speaking at the South Dakota Corn Growers 26th annual meeting. Proper drainage can benefit both the environment and the economy through a reduction in runoff and higher yields.