Barn fire near Lafayette kills hundreds of hogs

OTTERBEIN, Ind. (AP) — Hundreds of hogs were killed in a wind-whipped barn fire at a Benton County farm that firefighters from eight departments helped battle.

The owner of the farm, Jim Lehe, was flying back from West Virginia after learning of the Thursday fire, said his brother, John Lehe.

“It’s a total loss. One hundred percent,” John Lehe said. “The hogs had all died. I couldn’t hear any sounds out of there.”

It took 90 minutes for firefighters from Tippecanoe, Benton and White counties to bring the fire under control near Otterbein, about 10 miles west of Lafayette. The cause was not determined. The state fire marshal was expected to help in the investigation Friday.
Wabash Township Volunteer Fire Department assistant chief Jason Fisher estimated there were hundreds of hogs in the barn, which was part of a larger structure on the farm.

The National Weather Service reported gusts of up to 40 miles an hour Thursday in Lafayette.


DuPont-Tate & Lyle’s $100 million bio-factory starts

LOUDON, Tenn. (AP) — Railcars filled with a new bio-engineered corn-based polymer are already pulling out of chemical giant DuPont Co.’s $100 million joint-venture factory with multinational agri-processor Tate & Lyle.

Next stop could be the carpet in your living room.

While other companies are attacking the renewable resources problem on several fronts, DuPont and Tate & Lyle consider themselves several steps ahead. They tout this plant about 35 miles south of Knoxville as “visible evidence that an economy based on renewable ingredients is possible.”

E. coli bacteria modified by DuPont scientists is used to convert corn sugar from an adjacent Tate & Lyle ethanol plant using a fermentation process, much like making beer.

The result is a clear liquid compound that can replace and improve upon petroleum-based ingredients in a quickly expanding range of products, including fabrics, cosmetics, liquid detergents, boat hulls, ski boots and runway deicers.

With customers already knocking at their door – among them carpet maker Mohawk Industries and automaker Toyota Motor Corp. – and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman christening the plant Friday, DuPont and Tate & Lyle are finding it hard to curb their enthusiasm.

Farmer-owned plant merges with Iowa company

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — One of South Dakota’s farmer-owned ethanol plants is merging with an Iowa company.

Lake Area Corn Processors, which owns Dakota Ethanol of Wentworth, announced that it will merge the ethanol plant with Countryside Renewable Energy. The companies have signed a nonbinding letter of intent in which Lake Area will exchange 100 percent of its ownership in Dakota Ethanol for a combination of cash and equity shares in Countryside.

Lisa Richardson, executive director of the South Dakota Corn Growers, said consolidation in the industry has been predicted by ethanol officials and other industry watchers for several years. “This is an opportunity for farmer-owned plants to come together,” she said.

Countryside chief executive officer David Miles said the Des Moines, Iowa-based company was created to enable independent ethanol plants to band together to share economies of scale, operational risks and best practices.

“With the industry changing quickly and dominant players emerging, it is vitally important that ethanol producers have a strategic choice other than selling out or going it alone,” Miles said.
Dakota Ethanol, which produces 48 million gallons of ethanol annually, completed construction on its Wentworth plant in 2001. The company had revenues in 2006 of $103.9 million.

Brian Woldt, a Dakota Ethanol board member, said it was a leader in the ethanol industry when it started eight years ago, but the board also knew that its members are always looking to move forward.

“We have entered into this process with Countryside to become part of a larger ethanol production organization, which we believe will help us improve profitability, our competitive position and our long-term prospects,” he said.

Richardson predicted that independent plants from around the country eventually will come together so poor weather or production costs in a given year can be offset by production in other regions.
“I foresee this happening very quickly in the next 18 months. Where all these plants end up will be very interesting,” she said.


Environmentalists want tougher regulations for CAFOs

SHERIDAN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Environmentalists want tougher state oversight for Michigan’s largest livestock and poultry farms, but Kent Karnemaat would be happier if the state let the farms take the lead on controlling pollution.

Karnemaat’s large hog farm is considered a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO. Roughly 250 of the state’s 53,000 farms have enough cattle, swine, sheep, horses, turkeys or chickens to be classified as CAFOs.

CAFOs, which detractors often call factory farms, have been accused of polluting waterways and creating foul odors, dust, gaseous emissions and other air pollution.

Nearly all manure generated by CAFOs is spread on farm fields, and state records show that runoff from dozens of operations - not Karnemaat’s - have polluted nearby streams with potentially harmful bacteria found in animal waste.

Just recently, the owner of two CAFOs in southern Michigan accused of violating a court order by spraying liquid manure waste into the air and piping it onto fields was ordered to upgrade its manure treatment facilities and replace failing equipment.

Hudson-based Vreba-Hoff Dairy LLC was told by the Ingham Circuit Court that it must pay $180,000 in fines and court costs and reduce its herd since the company didn’t seem to have the capacity to handle the manure generated on the two farms, which have about 6,200 animals between them.

Environmental groups have long sought stricter guidelines for large livestock and poultry operations and tougher penalties against those that discharge unacceptable amounts of waste and pollution. But Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Gerald Van Woerkom, R-Norton Shores, has a different idea.

He recently introduced a bill that would allow CAFOs that participate in a voluntary program administered by the Michigan Department of Agriculture to avoid having to get a surface water discharge permit from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

This farm news was published in the June 13, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.