Iowa Farmer Today
06-03-06
Long-time ethanol advocate seeks office
By Gene Lucht, Iowa Farmer Today
Bill Northey
Bill Northey is no newcomer to many of the issues facing Iowa agriculture or to
the farm organizations that have dealt with those issues.
Northey, a Republican candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture, is a 46-yearold Iowa State University graduate who farms near Spirit Lake.
He also is a former president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA),
a former member of the state Farm Service Agency (FSA) state committee and a
long-time member of his county’s Soil and Water Conservation District
committee.
He knows the territory.
But, public office is a new direction for Northey. He is one of four candidates
running for Iowa secretary of agriculture and will face fellow Republican Mark
Leonard in the June 6 primary vote.
Two Democrats, Dusky Terry and Denise O’Brien, are competing against each
other for the right to face Northey or Leonard in the general election this fall.
“I think the primary process is valuable to a general-election candidate,” Northey
says. “We are forced to learn and to become better candidates.”
Northey, the long-time corn association leader who promoted ethanol for many
years, has made livestock production one of the key pieces of his campaign so
far.
“We forget that one of the keys to the ethanol industry is growing the livestock
industry,” he says.
That is because ethanol production also means production of distillers grains that
are best used as livestock feed. To make ethanol production more profitable,
uses for distillers grain must be found and that usually means livestock.
Northey also says he has been concerned about the tone of the message coming
from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in recent years.
The problem isn’t as much the actual regulations as the idea there will always be
more regulations, he says.
Many livestock producers are afraid to expand, and many young people who
would like to use livestock to begin farming are scared to do so, he notes.
Despite that problem Northey says the people he has talked to on the campaign
trail are upbeat about agriculture, perhaps more so than at any time over the past
25 years.
“People are kind of excited about agriculture again.”
The state’s job is to support those people and help them get into agriculture or to
stay in agriculture if they are already there, Northey believes.
Ethanol is a big part of that excitement now, he adds, but the state can’t afford to
rest on its laurels.
It needs to do even more to help the ethanol industry expand. That includes
research into cellulosic ethanol production, he explains.
Northey also says the state needs to simplify its livestock regulations and target
its soil and water conservation efforts to make them more efficient.
“We don’t want our nitrogen going down the river into the Gulf,” he says. “That
costs farmers money and hurts the environment.”
To accomplish all those goals Northey says the new secretary of agriculture will
need to work with a variety of organizations.
As a former NCGA president and the grandson of a state Farm Bureau president,
he sees that as one of his strengths.