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Idaho Straw Value-Added Committee: Southern Idaho.

Article Excerpt
About the group:

The Idaho Straw Value-Added Committee (SVAC), led by Grant 4D Farms, consists of an 86-member steering committee of wheat and barley growers in the southern and eastern third of Idaho. The group is pursuing the formation of a cooperative or producer-owned Limited Liability Co. (LLC) to develop advanced harvesting, storage, pre-processing and transportation systems to supply straw to industrial processors. The systems are being designed to meet the industry standards that growers and suppliers have to comply with to supply feedstock for ethanol and other bio-products.

Business objective:

The committee's objective is to have member-growers supply nearly 1 million tons of high-quality straw" annually to a cellulose ethanol biorefinery. Iogen Corporation, a Canadian firm partially owned by Royal Dutch Shell, is considering the construction of such a refinery in Idaho. Current plans call for a facility capable of processing 600,000 to 800,000 tons of straw annually, with an output of approximately 55 to 65 million gallons of ethanol.

If the committee is successful in forming a cooperative and meeting its production goals, farmers could collectively earn an additional $25 million to $30 million annually, by selling straw products to Iogen. This Idaho industry could produce up to 65 million gallons of ethanol beginning in 2009. This emerging technology not only would invigorate and revitalize Idaho's rural agricultural economy, it would also contribute to the nation's...