Salem Farmer Sees Bio-Based Fuels as Key to Soybean Demand

Drew Peterson constantly looks for ways to give him and his fellow farmers a leg up on markets. The Salem producer promotes building soybean demand through biofuels, exports and new uses. Peterson and his family work land in McCook County, but their farming is not confined to that jurisdiction.

“We’re right where the county lines are; I’m within a mile of Miner and Lake Counties, so we actually farm in all of those,” said Peterson, during an interview with the South Dakota Soybean Network during Dakotafest at Mitchell. “I farm with my father; we farm separate grounds. He farms the family ground my mother and him bought over their lifetimes. I farm what I’ve bought and then what I rent. Cows we run intermixed, 50/50 on that. We run 800 cows, a bigger herd, and so we calve them and winter them around home. Five to six months out of the year, they’re [pastured in] West River, south of Murdo.”

Peterson, who also serves as a South Dakota lawmaker, says part of his mission is to make commodity markets more profitable for farmers.

“Demand is critical. Without it, we can’t sell our crop at a break-even, and it’s really not at a break-even right now,” he said. “So, I continuously work on that issue from a policy level. I don’t want our policies in Pierre to get in the way of value-added agriculture, and so I’m always pushing that.”

The conversation with Peterson preceded a Dakotafest panel discussion among officials of a long-anticipated soybean crushing plant that was about to begin operating.

“We’re in Mitchell today. Just south of here, about a mile, is High Plains Processing. That is a big win for South Dakota farmers,” stressed Peterson. “They’re going to be crushing up to 35 million bushels of soybeans annually.”

Biodiesel and related soybean oil-based fuels have contributed to sound economic times for soybean growers, explained Peterson, adding that he favors any energy innovation that will increase soybean demand.

“Sustainable aviation fuel, I think, is the next thing that can help increase demand dramatically,” said Peterson. “The world uses 200 billion gallons of jet fuel every year. If we can get a fraction of that market, that’d be great.”

Peterson, a member of the South Dakota Soybean Association board, compares what biobased fuels mean for soybean growers to the way ethanol elevated demand for corn, helping to bring a generation back to the farm.

“I don’t know how we’re going to get there,” he said. “Right now, we can’t get there, based on the rules, but I hope we can, one way or another, make it a little cleaner here, or we can make the rules so we don’t need to make it so clean, right? I want to do it fairly and justly, but I want to make sure that we can be a producer of these fuels so we can have another great twenty years. But if we have negative break-evens long term, that’s going to be really hard to do that and allow our kids to come back to the farm.”