{"id":42708,"date":"2017-05-22T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rss.nova-institut.net\/public.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biofuelsdigest.com%2Fbdigest%2F2017%2F05%2F03%2Fbiofuel-market-doesnt-provide-enough-kick-for-missouri-miscanthus%2F"},"modified":"2017-05-10T10:07:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T08:07:29","slug":"biofuel-market-doesnt-provide-enough-kick-for-missouri-miscanthus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/biofuel-market-doesnt-provide-enough-kick-for-missouri-miscanthus\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscanthus offers Missouri farmers use for marginal land"},"content":{"rendered":"

RANDOLPH COUNTY, Mo. \u2014 Moberly farmer Howard Fleming saw an article about MFA Oil\u2019s initiative to raise a new crop in Missouri several years ago. The company was looking for farmers who were interested. He had some marginal land that wasn\u2019t doing him much good, so he took a leap.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Now, several years later, he\u2019s glad he did.<\/p>\n

A building on his farm stores massive bales of miscanthus, a grass-like plant that can grow as high as 15 feet each year and is used in several products.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat attracted us to it was it a good crop to grow on ground that wasn\u2019t really suitable for hay or for row crops,\u201d said Fleming, who is one of a handful of Randolph County farmers currently growing the crop. \u201cIt was kind of fallow, and we weren\u2019t using it for anything. It just seemed perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

A company called Renew Biomass took over MFA\u2019s miscanthus assets in 2015, and Fleming said the deal is still a good one for him: Renew Biomass mows, harvests, bails and trucks the grass, and Fleming\u2019s farm allows the land to be used and stores the crop.<\/p>\n

Renew Biomass saw an average of 6.5 tons of miscanthus harvested per acre last year on southwest Missouri and mid-Missouri farms, according to the company\u2019s website. The company expected to harvest around 3,700 acres during the 2017 harvest.<\/p>\n

Jared Embree, the mid-Missouri area manager for Renew Biomass, said the price for miscanthus is comparable to current grain prices.<\/p>\n

Embree grows around 50 acres of miscanthus on his own land. In fact, he grew it before he started working for the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cA group of us there in Moberly were kind of familiar with MFA Oil and familiar with their program, so we got together to try it out,\u201d he said. \u201cLater, a buddy of mine was working for them and needed me to fill in. One thing led to another and now I\u2019m the area manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embree said miscanthus can be a good alternative to leasing underutilized or marginal ground.<\/p>\n

Renew Biomass officials push another potential benefit of growing miscanthus: stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur product doesn\u2019t fluctuate in price like a corn or grain,\u201d said Eric Allphin, director of agriculture for Renew Biomass. \u201cSo it\u2019s going to be very consistent with our customers. We have about a 98 percent resigning of contracts with our farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allphin said Renew\u2019s contract structure means the company takes some of the worry off the farmers\u2019 shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farmer who row crops every year takes a risk on prices and input costs,\u201d he said. \u201cWith our structure for miscanthus, we take on a lot of those risks. We have a set price they\u2019re going to be guaranteed per ton. It can handle drought; it can handle flooding. There\u2019s less risk of loss or the unknown amount of money they\u2019re going to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although miscanthus is a relatively new crop to Missouri, it\u2019s not new to Europe. There, miscanthus is commonly used as an environmentally friendly biofuel. Some companies say it even outperforms corn and other biofuel alternatives.<\/p>\n

But most of the miscanthus grown in mid-Missouri ends up in cat food and dog food. It\u2019s used as the main fiber source for multiple pet food providers, Embree said.<\/p>\n

The choice to sell mid-Missouri-grown miscanthus to pet food providers rather than green energy producers is a market-driven one, Allphin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf one day there became a market where we could sell in that green fuel market, I\u2019m not going to say that we wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as of right now, oil is $40 a barrel, and you\u2019ve got major companies in Iowa growing corn and not being able to do anything with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we would hit any market that\u2019s available if it was profitable to both Renew Biomass and our farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleming, whose farm also produces corn, soybeans and timber, said that, without MFA\u2019s initial efforts to get cost-share funds from the government, miscanthus would have been an expensive crop to get started, but once it gets going, it\u2019s going to go for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiscanthus has a good root system,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to terrace it. You plant it and then it\u2019s there forever. It\u2019s a perennial. I don\u2019t know that anybody knows how long this stuff will grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of miscanthus grass\u2019 sustainable nature, Renew Biomass doesn\u2019t have to tear up the ground every year, Allphin said. The grass requires low nutrient input, and it\u2019s harvested in the winter.<\/p>\n

Some farmers are leery of new crops, Allphin said, but he also noted that older farmers may remember when soybeans were considered a new crop, too, and some wouldn\u2019t grow them.<\/p>\n

Some farmers have raised concern that miscanthus could be an invasive species, like Johnsongrass. It\u2019s a notion that Allphin and Fleming quickly dispelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can pretty well be proven that it\u2019s not invasive as far as the seeds are concerned,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cYou need to mow around it to keep it from going where you don\u2019t want it to go. But as far as birds and animals eating the seeds and spreading the crop, that\u2019s not possible because the seeds are sterile. Manage the stuff properly and it won\u2019t spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Renew Biomass is not currently looking to expand its miscanthus acreage, Embree said the company has some new ideas and developments in the works.<\/p>\n

Renew Biomass isn\u2019t interested in being a corporate farmer, Allphin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our farmers to benefit,\u201d he said. \u201cWe might be better off leasing all our ground and growing (miscanthus), but that doesn\u2019t help the farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Fleming and Co., \u201cWe look forward to it being a good, profitable crop for us for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Missouri, miscanthus farmers are happy with the results they’re getting on their 3,700 acres of m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5842,10563],"supplier":[3365],"class_list":["post-42708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biomass","tag-renewable","supplier-mfa-oil-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42708"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=42708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}