(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Farm Connections."

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's episode, we attend a low-carbon farming workshop in Owatonna and discuss carbon credits with Mitchell Hora.

We meet with Angela White from the Olmsted County Soil and Water Conservation District to learn more about soil and water conservation programs that they have available, and the University of Minnesota provides us another "Best Practices" segment, all here today on "Farm Connections."

(upbeat country music) - [Narrator] Welcome to "Farm Connections" with your host Dan Hoffman.

- [Announcer] "Farm Connections" made possible in part by.

- [Announcer] Minnesota Corn, working to identify and promote opportunities for corn growers, enhance quality of life, and help others understand the value and importance of corn production to America's economy.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] EDP Renewables North America, owner operator of Prairie Star and Pioneer Prairie Wind Farms in Minnesota and Iowa.

EDPR wind farms and solar parks provide income to farmers and help power rural economies across the continent.

- [Announcer] R & S Grain Systems, a family-owned business, serving its customers for 50 years with leading designs in the manufacturing of grain handling equipment and grain storage systems.

You can call in for a quote today.

Mower County Farm Bureau Association, advocates for agriculture based on the policies and beliefs of its members.

It's dedicated to making the voices of its members stronger.

You can learn more about membership benefits at FBMN.org, (upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) - "Farm Connections" at Owatonna, Minnesota at the Carbon Intensity Workshop.

And with me, is Mitchell Hora.

Mitchell, welcome to "Farm Connections".

- Yeah, great to be here.

- Well, it was a great meeting.

Tell me how you got started in this business?

- Yeah, I kind of fell into it to be honest, but I mean it all starts that I'm seventh generation farmer.

My family farms in Southeast Iowa.

Last year was our 150th year.

My family operation is my parents and myself, we're about 700 acres.

and I started a company in 2015 called Continuum Ag that at that time was agronomy crop consulting and helping farmers to document their soil health.

That's progressed that we launched some software and now with our software we run carbon intensity scores and that's where we're teaching farmers here today.

- Sounds like you're a true entrepreneur.

- My whole family has been, and yeah, looking back, I didn't know that I was at the time, right?

When I was a little kid, but I was selling lemonade and had my own hogs and had own like hay business and mowing business.

I had all kinds of different entrepreneurial stuff and went to college with zero plan, like an entrepreneur does, and then come out with a business.

So, but never had any plan on doing software or doing carbon intensity.

And when I started this thing, it wasn't even a part of the equation, but it's just progressed.

And what I'm have found that I'm best at is seeing where the puck is going and identifying what's the need for, in this case, for my own family farm to participate.

And for my own farm to participate in carbon intensity programs or in better soil health management, we needed data tools to do it, and we built it ourselves.

- Well, the workshop today talks a lot about data and the need for it.

- Yeah.

- So, you fill that void of lack of data.

- [Mitchell] Yeah.

- [Dan] And put it in an organized system with the software on how to collect it, process it, and utilize it.

- That's right.

So, carbon intensity is nothing new.

It's been a metric that the Department of Energy has used since the nineties to quantify the carbon footprint of our fuels.

But for the first time, because of the 45Z tax credit, a federal tax credit, for the first time, the corn and the carbon footprint of the corn or soybeans, it can be part of the conversation, part of the equation, but in order to do this, we gotta have records.

We gotta document what was the fertilizer, the tillage, was there cover crops, was there manure?

What was the yield?

We have to document all this stuff and we have to do it for every field.

Every field that's producing bushels, we gotta document the farm practices, we gotta get it verified so that a farmer could get paid by helping their ethanol partners to lower their carbon footprint and get these credits.

So, Continuum Ag is just being proactive to help the farmers organize their data and get 'em verified so that they're in position, if there's an opportunity to get paid.

- And that came out in the workshop too.

We've got some policy put in place that could lead to some good things.

We just want our ag community to be ready, right?

- To be ready.

We ran 76 CI scores today.

There was 200 and some farmers in the room, and I'm sure there'll be a bunch more of 'em that'll run the scores when they get back.

Before today, we were already at 185 million bushels that we've ran scores for.

We launched an initiative called the Billion Bushel Challenge in December, and we're already well on our way to that billion bushels with darn near 200 million bushels already.

So, now about 6 billion bushels goes into ethanol every year though.

So, at Continuum Ag, we wanna score the first billion bushels, but there's 6 billion that needs this data, needs this scores.

We're just trying to spread awareness and make sure that farmers understand that their data is the key, their data is very valuable, and our friends at the ethanol plant they need that data so they can potentially tap into these tax credits.

- So, if it's done well,- - Yeah.

- and it's successful, and we reach that vision, what would it look like?

- It's billions of dollars for rural America.

So, it's billions of dollars in tax credits for our rural communities.

It's low-carbon, renewable energy, better American energy independence grown with renewable corn and soybean crops.

And by doing more soil health practices on the farm, we can lower the carbon footprint of that bushel, therefore lowering the carbon footprint of that fuel.

So that when the fuel's going in your tank, it's already low-carbon, because of how it was produced.

And that's a pretty cool kind of thing.

So today, obviously, gasoline has a really big carbon footprint, comes from fossil fuel, and it's part of the problem of high CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Well, by producing more low-carbon ethanol, or biodiesel, or sustainable aviation fuel, we can really lower the footprint of these fuels, and it all starts on the farm.

But over the course of all this, this is going to force other industries to have to compete as well.

Low-carbon corn can go into low-carbon ethanol, but it also could go to low-carbon pork, or low-carbon milk, or low-carbon eggs, or whatever the next product may be.

It all starts on the farm and we've gotta get that data organized so we can better tell our story and open up new markets.

- It all seems to revolve around carbon and sequestration.

Why?

- It's what the powers that be want, right?

It's coming from the top down, big financial institutions, and this is a government thing.

And this administration has been very focused on carbon, carbon footprint.

It's kind of the hot thing, right?

And part of the US is carbon footprint.

The major drivers of our carbon footprint come from energy, transportation, and agriculture are three out of the four biggest drivers of our carbon footprint.

So, for this administration to say, "All right, we gotta decarbonize," they can look at low-carbon, renewable fuel and that would address transportation, energy, and agriculture.

It's a triple whammy for them, but the outcome measurement just happens to be carbon intensity.

Basically, the carbon footprint per gallon or the carbon footprint per bushel.

I'm very bullish that in the future it won't just be what's your carbon footprint, but what's your impact on water quality, on biodiversity, or other sustainability metrics?

The problem is we don't really have calculations for those other tools, but for carbon intensity we do, and it's the US Department of Energy GREET model.

- Can you tell us a little more about that acronym?

- Yeah, so the GREET model, it's G-R-E-E-T.

It's a long acronym, doesn't matter, but it's a tool that was developed by the US Department of Energy, and it's the gold standard for measuring the carbon intensity or the carbon footprint of fuel.

And it allows for kind of a level playing field where you can compare fossil fuel gasoline versus diesel fuel versus jet fuel versus ethanol versus renewable diesel or whatever fuel you wanna look at.

But it's the gold standard for how to calculate the carbon intensity score.

And part of that score is what was used to produce the fuel, in this case, corn or soybeans.

So, that GREET model is the tool developed by the Department of Energy that gives us the score.

What we've done in our software is integrate that tool into our system to make it really easy for farmers to run their score, 'cause it's a Department of Energy tool, it's kind of clunky.

It's not the most user friendly, especially for farmers.

We've just made it really easy.

But the GREET model, Department of Energy tool, it's a government tax credit, government quantification system.

We're just helping farmers to use it.

- Well, to your point, I can remember many years ago, actually, coming into a community in California by the name of Los Angeles.

- Sure.

- My eyes stung, I saw a yellow smog, and I said, "That's what smog is."

It was pre-ethanol, pre-ethanol blended fuels.

You can go into some of those same communities today and see a difference, but unless we can measure it with data, it doesn't matter what I think, right?

- That's right.

We gotta have numbers on it, especially to directly be able to drive financial impact.

It's gotta have data.

So, that's what we're helping to bring to the table.

And it's gotta be verified.

It can't just be we can claim whatever we wanna claim, it's gotta be legit.

And these ethanol companies are reporting the data to the IRS.

They're gonna be audited, they've gotta be legitimate here.

So, we've gotta have that data organized and it'll, like I said, it starts on the farm.

- What's the outcome if we can't get this done?

- Ends up being that, number one, we just don't really tap into these tax credits, if we don't see movement.

This is the big carrot right now.

It could be the stick in the future, that could be a problem.

But as this goes, I mean, who knows, if it's gonna be mandated, if it's gonna be regulated, but also we just lose out on some market opportunities as well.

- And if I understand you right, when you said top down, we have policy makers that made a policy and it comes with an incentive, and the front edge of that is, get on board and make it work for your farm, right?

- Get on board, make it work.

There's money to be had at our ethanol plants and then on the farm and it's a huge carrot, a huge gift.

And I mean we've seen Secretary Tom Vilsack say like, "Hey people, you gotta pay attention.

You gotta be on this.

Like this is an amazing opportunity.

And if you don't take advantage, you don't wanna see the alternative."

Is one of the things he had put out in a tweet.

I'm paraphrasing obviously, but basically like, "Hey, here's a huge gift.

American energy, American farmers, like huge opportunity for you.

Capitalize on this."

And again, I'm very bullish that it's gonna end up forcing other industries, other verticals to respond as well.

Most of my corn on my farm goes to feed pigs, but there's no tax credits for low-carbon pork.

There's no market for low-carbon pork, but there's significant potential financials for low-carbon ethanol.

So my corn, instead of going to feed pigs, my corn is gonna be incentivized to go to the ethanol plant.

The pig guy will still have corn, it just won't be the low-carbon corn.

My corn has a carbon intensity score of negative 4.1.

Meaning when I'm producing corn, I'm actually, locking down more carbon than what I'm emitting with my fuel usage and fertilizer and stuff.

So, now when they're feeding that or producing fuel, it's already carbon negative.

- And if we listened intently in the meeting, the average is far above that.

It is?

- The average, so the every single county has a default, and that's about 29.

My farm's negative four.

We've already scored 185 million bushels, like I said, and the average that we've seen is 10.7.

So, instead of being 29, they're at 10.7, basically, a 20-point drop.

That leads to huge financial opportunity in these tax credits and likely some opportunity for those farmers who are doing the work to lower their footprint, thus lowering the footprint of the ethanol.

- Certainly, the policy makers have put some incentives in place to do the right thing, - To do the right thing, but yeah, it's the carrot.

Like I said, we need to decarbonize, we need to continue to move this forward, do more better soil health practices.

Anyway, it's just good agronomics, but now, there's just a additional financial incentive to pull together the data and be able to show that we're willing to lead the charge as farmers, but also as a biofuel industry.

- Thank you so much.

- Appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections".

(upbeat country music) - [Announcer] "Farm Connections Best Practices" brought to you by Absolute Energy and AgVantage Software.

(upbeat music) - I'm Nathan Drewitz, your local extension educator for crops in Stearns, Benton, and Morrison Counties, and this is today's "Best Practices" segment.

Today, we're gonna talk a little bit about drought-stressed corn grain and corn silage, and taking those for forage sources here in late summer, early fall.

In this case here, most of us, especially here in central Minnesota, but or wherever I'm currently standing, but all over the state, we're currently seeing the effects of drought stress on both corn grain fields and corn silage fields.

And so, we need to be prepared to deal with this, especially in terms of how we're gonna handle this at this fall when we go to harvest.

So, the first consideration, the first thing we need to be looking at is evaluating the field as a whole.

So, in this case here, we have corn at three different stages, in three different levels of growth.

We have the really short stuff.

This is the stuff that's actually, not under the irrigation pivot.

And that's what's currently all around me here.

And this is really you're seeing a lot of burnt, you're seeing a lot of flaring up.

And so, we need to keep that in mind.

Once you start getting a little closer to the irrigation pivot, we start noticing that we start seeing tassels as well as ears that are coming into play.

As well as on the stuff under the irrigation pivot itself, where while we're still seeing some of that flaring up due to nitrate concerns as well as the heat that we've had and the lack of moisture, we are still seeing quite a nice ear.

And that will help us out as we get ready to harvest this stuff for forage.

So, in the case here, what we're really looking for is those corn plants that do have an ear attached to them.

And what we're gonna be looking for is whether they're pollinated or not.

And so, in this case, what we're gonna wanna do is we're gonna pull back those husks, we're gonna turn that ear on its side, and we're gonna wanna give it a light shake.

The idea here is that if the silks fall off of that corn cob relatively easily, that indicates pollination.

If it doesn't, that indicates that it's not pollinated, relatively simple.

In this instance here, if we do have a ear that has been pollinated, we are going to try to get that ear and let that ear develop for as long as we can.

As that will help us store a lot of the nutrient and help bring up the forage quality in that silage at the end of the season.

The big thing here is that with drought stress, we actually, don't see necessarily a drop in forage quality as long as we have that ear, we don't necessarily see that drop in forage quality, but we are gonna see that drop in actual yields.

And so, when we're looking to harvest the stuff, we will have a much tighter margin for error this year in harvesting corn silage versus previous years including the grain.

And this is why making sure that we are actually, testing our corn silage and corn grain, if you're looking for it for the whole plant moisture.

So that way we harvest it at the right moisture for the proper storage unit that you have.

For this area, typically, when I think of harvesting for bags or bunkers, we're thinking that 65 to 70% moisture.

For upright silos, we're thinking in terms of the 60 to 65% moisture.

So, when we're looking at corn moisture in this case, there are a few different ways that you could do that.

My personal favorite is using the Costa tester that I have, but for most of you, if you're doing this on farm, you could do this with a microwave oven or a dehydrator or you know, any form along those lines that you might have on farm to help you dry that plant biomass out.

And really what you're looking at is that fraction that dries out versus the fraction that remains.

I will caution that if you're using something like a microwave oven or an actual microwave itself, that you make sure you don't cook the silage when you're testing it.

Of course, the third or the second option is to go ahead and send that into a lab and have them run the samples for moisture as well.

And that will give you an idea as to where you're currently at.

The next consideration is probably the most important one, and that is on nitrates.

So, one of the things that we have happen with the corn silage when it's drought stressed like this, is we do have accumulations of nitrates, especially in that lower third of that plant.

And this is important, because nitrates can cause issues or even death in livestock as we go along here.

In this instance here, if you're gonna be harvesting, especially a lot of this shorter stuff, and we haven't had any rain, and you haven't had any rain in a while, you may not necessarily care too much about taking a nitrate sample prior to feeding and prior to harvest, but you will wanna collect a nitrate sample and submit that to your local lab or once you get ready to feed that out.

And that's mainly, because in the insiling process that corn silage goes through, will remove between 30 and 50% of the nitrates in that corn silage.

The other aspects that we need to be thinking about as well is that if you do have a field where you are concerned about nitrates, you can run that through before you harvest and get a nitrate level for that.

And then you can also adjust then that cutting height as you see fit.

In the case of a lot of our silage this year, I think we're gonna be looking at a lot of, or we will be looking at a lot of growers who are gonna be trying to get as much outta the fields as possible.

And so, that might not be feasible.

But again, there are options there, if you do need to reduce the nitrate concentration in these tissues.

I'm Nathan Drewitz, local University of Minnesota Extension educator for Stearns, Benton, and Morrison Counties.

And this has been today's "Best Practices" segment.

(upbeat country music) - Welcome to "Farm Connections."

We're in Rochester, Minnesota at the University of Minnesota Extension Office.

and with me today is an official from the Olmsted County Soil and Water Conservation District, Angela White.

Angela, welcome to "Farm Connections".

- Thank you.

- We just saw a great program where you presented some things.

Tell us why it's important what you do.

- So, I work for the Olmsted Soil and Water Conservation District.

We are located here in Olmsted County in Rochester.

And our primary purpose is to work with the landowners.

Our bread and butter people that we work with are our producers, so our farmers here, and we really work with them to help protect our water quality and our soils.

So, if a landowner or a farmer has some questions or some concerns about erosion on their farmland, they can come to our office and we can work with them to help resolve those issues with either structural practices or different management practices that they can implement on their landscape.

- Well, that came through loud and clear in the meeting that you're here to serve the public, including trying to have clean water, good soil, and have something that is sustainable.

You also talked a lot about a tree list or being able to buy trees.

What's that program all about?

- Yeah, so the Soil and Water Office, we've had an annual tree sale program, probably I think now for the last 30 years.

And most of the SWCDs in Minnesota have a tree sale program.

So, if you're not from Rochester and Olmsted County, and you're looking for some trees, contact your local SWCD office.

But what it is, is it's an avenue for landowners, either farmers or people that might just have 5 or 10 acres that want to plant some trees on it or do some reforestation, an avenue to purchase some conservation-grade trees.

So, they're about two years old, between that 16 and 18 inch height-wise for a very reasonable cost.

They're 25 trees per bundle.

They're all bare root, but it's a good way to just get some variety and diversity back in our forest.

Or if you have a five-acre parcel that you don't wanna mow anymore, you could always turn it into woodlands there too.

In addition to that, in the last two years we've offered a plant kit and a seed sale.

So, really trying to get natives and pollinator habitat back out on the landscape.

So, that program is kind of geared also for those small lot owners.

Again, if you don't wanna mow your lot and you wanna convert it back to prairie and native habitat, we offer seed quantities, 100 square feet up to 5,000 square feet.

And then we also offer plant kits.

So, they're think of like a pot that you would get from a nursery.

They're a three-inch pot, but they're all native plants.

We work with a company out of West Central Minnesota, and so, ecotype and local genotypes are really important, and that supplier can offer that for us.

So, you can add a little prairie and a little pollinator mix into your landscaping around your home or convert your turf grass into something that you don't have to mow so you can spend more time doing other things.

- Less gas, less wear and tear- - Yeah.

- Less time in the seat.

- Yep, always.

- Not only did you have a large list of plants and trees for a reasonable price, you also had some other programs like CREP, CRP.

Can you talk about them and even tell us what the acronym means?

- Yeah, so CREP is a combination of Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, that's offered through your farm service agency and RIM, Reinvest In Minnesota.

And so, CREP is a program that landowners can enroll in where if you have ag land that you want to convert into some type of native habitat, you can enroll it in that, have a 10 or a 15-year contract through CRP, and then it will turn into a permanent easement program through RIM.

So, it's really a way to help protect that land, if your goal is to keep it in habitat and wildlife landscapes.

And so, the RIM is perpetual, it's a program that's provided through the state of Minnesota.

And so, if you're interested in a program like that, contact your local SWCD office to learn more and see if your acreages would be eligible for a program that we have open right now.

- And, of course, some of those programs have a stipend or an annual fee that's paid to the landowner, correct?

- Yeah, so in CREP, which is the CRP and the RIM combined, there is the rental payment that you receive through your CRP program, the Conservation Reserve, and then the RIM is a one-time payment that's made by the state for that permanent easement component of the program.

We do have a standalone RIM program that Reinvest In Minnesota, which has a one-time payment that is made to the landowner that's enrolling it.

But again, it is perpetual.

So, even if you sell that property, that will go with the new owners of it, 'cause it does follow through with the title.

It's something that landowners should really think hard about, if it's fits their goals for that land to see if it works with it, 'cause it is perpetual.

- And the CRP or Conservation Reserve Program that has a sunset time?

- It does, that is a 10 or a 15-year contract and with the option typically of re-enrolling it, if the land still meets the qualifications for that planting.

So, if you enrolled it in a native prairie planting initially, and after the 15 years is up, if the seeding still meets the requirements, you could re-enroll it for another 10 or 15 years through that program.

- Angelo, thanks for the program.

Thanks for what you do.

Thanks for helping landowners and our environment.

- Thank you.

(upbeat country music) - Well, that just about does it here for today's episode of "Farm Connections".

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thank you for joining us.

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) (upbeat country music continues) (upbeat music)