Hello from a new/old face at Ethanol Producer. Yes, the photo here is not me – but two of our designers are busy trying to wrap things up to go off and get married. (Not to each other, they just happened to both schedule their weddings on the same day.) The third designer is coming back from the middle of her maternity leave until they return. I think updating the photos in this blog can take a back seat.

Our Canadian readers might know what I look like, since I attended the Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit in Vancouver a month ago. I picked up some advice from a couple of speakers I'd like to share. They were two political insiders, talking about the scene in Ottawa among the conservatives and liberals. And they had some advice for the biofuels industry.

When the media attention on a hot issue has faded, they said, avoid continually drawing attention to it. Thus, the food versus fuel issue should no longer be constantly referred to by the industry in its public relations. However, one does not ignore it. We in the industry should be engaging with our opponents and important forums, continuing the dialogue and explaining the complexities of the commodity sector.

Similarly, the indirect land use issue is no longer as hot as it was in the media eye, but our attention needs to be focused on the policymakers. When it comes to policymakers, each one of us has at least three important policymakers in Washington from our state. (Can you tell I live in North Dakota? We have the minimum – three – but they have influence that outweighs our small state.)

There's another forum where we need to give input. We heard from another speaker at Vancouver that the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels is short on stakeholder input from the biofuels industry. The RSB is a place to engage with environmental and social NGOs, learning how they think and explaining what our industry is like. I get the impression corn ethanol is summarily dismissed as unsustainable among some in this circle. They need people from corn country explaining how corn ethanol fits into the corn belt.

One last point from the political insiders. They suggested the Canadian biofuels industry frame itself in the economic discussion in the next election cycle, and not the environmental. The Canadians heard some impressive studies showing the economic impact of an ethanol plant on a region, and they see it as a way to bring a new market to overproduced crops and economic development to rural communities. The Canadians also keep one eye on the discussion in the United States. We're tracking it down now, but late last week we saw a report that someone in Canada is asking for a study to see if Canadian biofuels really are sustainable.

It's something to ponder. Should the ethanol industry shift the focus away from ethanol's environmental benefits and talk more about the economic impact? What do you think?