At press time, harvest was underway in many parts of the country, but warmer-than-normal temperatures and 10.5 inches of rain back in May had Darrin Erdman of Groton, S.D., waiting to combine soybeans. "It's frustrating because the beans are ready to go, but the seed and the plant are not," he tells EPM. "We won't be able to cut them until we get a good freeze, but we have an excellent crop as a consolation, so we can deal with a few issues."
Erdman, a farmer and seed dealer for Golden Harvest, says he's been shifting acres away from beans anyway since Poet Biorefining-Groton, a 50 MMgy ethanol plant, is just west of town. "We have more bidders now for corn, which means we're not at the mercy of the elevator, so I'm growing more," he says.
The Groton plant was a welcome addition to this rural town about 20 miles east of Aberdeen, S.D. Corn growers and the local ag industry in general haven't been the only beneficiaries of the new enterprise either. "When we were building a new arena for the high school—for basketball and things like that—Poet just started writing checks," Erdman says. Building a new gymnasium might seem insignificant to some, but it's something that ultimately contributes to the health and cohesiveness of the community. "Everybody splits up and goes to different churches on Sunday, but we're all together for some of these games and other things at the school," Erdman says.
The ethanol plant hasn't affected Erdman's seed business much, and for other businesses in the ag sector, it's been excellent. "Take the bin builders," he says. "It's been great for them. A lot of farms are putting in more bins. … In fact, we have one here that's about three-quarters constructed." Groton is also using the commodities that the plant is producing, which means that more dollars stay at home. "I don't know how good that is for the railroad, but they get help from the government anyway," Erdman says.
Interestingly, small towns in South Dakota seem to be more open to ethanol production compared with the state's larger cities like Aberdeen and Sioux Falls, Erdman says. Although Heartland Grain Fuels LP has an ethanol plant currently under expansion in Aberdeen, the city wasn't willing to house a second plant, he says. "That's why there's a plant in Mina (14 miles west of Aberdeen)," he says. "Enough of the NIMBYs ("Not in My Backyard") in Aberdeen threw it out. The funny thing is that the wastewater, which I believe is the only legitimate public concern about ethanol plants, still goes to Aberdeen." Sioux Falls doesn't have an ethanol plant, although Poet's corporate headquarters are there, along with the offices of the American Coalition for Ethanol. "Their businesses on Main Street are flourishing, so they don't think they need an agricultural operation like an ethanol plant," Erdman says.
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