On March 31, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, visited Elite Octane here in Atlantic. Other prominent officials that attended were: Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Iowa Senator Joni Earnest, and Iowa Representative Zach Nunn. 

At the private meeting, they discussed the future of fuel in the U.S. and considered the pros and cons of E15. Elite Octane generously offered to invite “two strong members of the Atlantic FFA” to attend this meeting and learn more about this bill that will potentially benefit the corn producers to consumers who use gas daily. Atlantic FFA Advisor Eric Miller chose president Lola Comes and president-elect Lauren Comes to attend because he deemed them “fit” for the job.

Jacquelyn Freund, a staff writer at AHS, conversed with Atlantic FFA President Lola Comes and Atlantic FFA President-elect Lauren Comes about what they learned in their own experience at the meeting.

Question and Answer:

What topics were discussed at the meeting? 

• Lauren: The main thing we discussed is the future of biofuel. Nick, the CEO of the ethanol plant, talked about the future of biofuel and how the politicians can have a stronger future for the farmers using E 15. So it’s less for the taxpayers and better for the fuel economy. 

How do you think that this will impact your future, and why? 

• Lauren: For my future, I think it impacted because it was good to see that there’s gonna be a hopefully a positive change for the farmers in the future, because it affects me and my family and my future as I go into farming and agriculture and it’s helpful to see that there’s a positive impact coming. 
• Lola: Both of us come from a cow/calf and row crop operation, so this will benefit our family for increased demand for corn. Overall, this will benefit everybody in the industry, and it’s nice to see the politicians coming to be involved with the younger generation and actually going to interact with people in the ethanol plant to understand how this law needs to be passed to increase demand for corn. 

What were your impressions of Iowa Representative Zach Nunn? 

• Lauren: Zack was extremely welcoming and super nice… he was the one who was always pulling us off to the side and always making sure that we got in pictures. He personally came and talked to me because they asked about my future for college, and I told them I was going to attend DMACC, and he said that they just put more funding in the DMACC program, so if I ever have any questions that I can contact him…
• Lola: He personally thanked us for being involved as the younger generation of farming because that’s really a necessity now as, you know, farmers are getting close to retirement age, and the average farmer’s age is 58, so he kept saying how nice it was to have the younger people involved.

What was your impression of Iowa Senator Joni Earnest? 

• Lauren: She came up to both me and Lola and was very happy to see women in agriculture. She’s always been one to love seeing women take over. In the past, we’ve had our officer team go to the ethanol plant when it first opened, and at that time, we had a female predominant officer team, and she was one to say that… It’s great to see because it’s a good future for women. I sat by her at the round table discussion, and she was always cracking a joke or looking at me and smiling and always being very welcoming. 

What was your impression of Kim Reynolds? 

• Lola: I got to sit next to Kim Reynolds for the whole meeting, and she’s super friendly. We’ve had the opportunity to meet her before. She’s always very welcoming, she was very invested in the conversations and the meeting. She wanted to learn more about agriculture; she was constantly taking notes, asking questions, and she was really inviting me and Lauren and asking us about our plans and making sure we were involved and not feeling left out. 

What opinions did you guys get to express personally? 

• Lauren: …We didn’t get to express how it’s going to affect us in the future. But they acknowledged that we were part of the FFA and that we were also future farmers, so they considered us with the rest. 
• Lola: I think we had a positive impact because they get to see that we care about it. That we’re knowledgeable about these topics and young people are very invested in it… Both of us are from a farming background, and we grew up helping our parents, so this will affect us just as much in the future. We are the next generation that’s going to be taking over the land and caring for the crops. 

What did you expect coming into it going into the press conference, and how did it change throughout? 

• Lauren: We went into it not really knowing what was gonna happen. We got told that we had a press conference that we were invited to with all of these politicians… But as soon as we got there, everybody welcomed us and told us they were very happy for us to be there. and then they kind of got started with the conference, and Nick started talking about the future of E15, biofuel and the future of corn for the farmers…
• Lola: I think it was an even better opportunity than we expected. It was super inviting, we had the opportunity to sit next to the governor and the senator and have a one-on-one interaction with them. They kept us involved in everything. We even had the opportunity to go and watch their media day after. And I think it just really had a positive impact on us as we learned more about agriculture, and we got to see what our politicians are going out and trying to do for the industry. 

Do you think this visit to Elite Octane was beneficial for the public? 

• Lauren: Yeah, I think it was extremely beneficial for the public, although the public wasn’t there, and it wasn’t necessarily televised. They were showing us how they’re going to impact the public in the future and how they’re gonna hopefully use these laws in this corn demand to help out the farmers and help out the public with their fuel demands, with the E15, making the economy more clean… Then at the very end, Secretary Rawlins announced a USCA press for the infrastructure funding.

What did the two of you learn from this experience? How will you both use this in your future careers?

• Lauren: I’m gonna take a path in predominantly animal science, although I won’t necessarily go into the crop industry. I’ll always have that crop background… It will be beneficial for my other family members who will stay in the crop industry. For me personally, it will help in the future because it’s gonna help the future of taxpayers… they’ll make the corn economy better and E15 will help… 
• Lola: I plan to go to college to major in agriculture communications and political science to be a beef lobbyist, and I will go out and fight for the industry and things like this ethanol movement. Although I am going to primarily be in beef cattle, I think ethanol is incredibly important to this industry. Corn is what the cattle are eating. We need to take care of the crops and ensure there’s a high demand so this industry isn’t relying on government money to succeed so that they can provide for themselves, their families, and the people they’re feeding all across the world. 

If you want to learn more about New laws regarding E15 and Biofuels, visit Growth Energy.