Several bills impacting agriculture have been introduced at the Statehouse. A couple of bills Indiana farmers should be closely following along with us here at Hoosier Ag Today are House Bill 1127 from Allen County Representative Dave Heine and its companion bill in the Senate, SB254 from Boone County’s Brian Buchanan.
These bills would provide biofuel tax credits to fuel retailers, “Incentivizing those retailers to offer those higher blends, and building demand for both corn and soybeans,” says Steve Howell with the Indiana Corn Growers Association and Indiana Soybean Alliance.
He’s talking about higher blends of ethanol or soy biodiesel. A study shows that if passed, this measure could bring an additional $117 million annually to Hoosier corn and soybean farmers, and it would bring great value to the rest of the state as well.
“It’ll add $104 million to Indiana’s GDP, and it’ll save the consumers $11 million annually,” Howell explains. “And this is an investment of $10 million for the ethanol incentive, $5 million for the biodiesel incentive, total investment of $15 million and we can show that return right back into Hoosier’s pockets.”
Howell joins us on the Indiana Ag Policy Podcast to discuss the bills and is joined by Aaron Kuhn, Regional Marketing Manager for POET. Kuhn explains what the demand could be for corn growers.
“So, if we were able to push those extra gallons through E15, hit the max cap of $10 million, that’s 30 million gallons or essentially another 10 million bushels of new demand just for this bill.”
Jeremy Mullins, Commercial Manager of Louis Dreyfus Company in Claypool, also joins us on the podcast. He explains how the bill is beneficial to biofuel producers like them as well.
“The closer we can ship our product to our final consumer being in Indiana versus loading it by rail and shipping it to the New York Harbor, the closer we ship it, that’s less cost for us. And those cost savings do trickle down to the farmer as well.”
Hear the Indiana Ag Policy Podcast now below or in the Hoosier Ag Today mobile app.
