In a recent interview with Meatingplace.com, Phil Seng, president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, U.S. establishing a traceability system for livestock will be important in helping U.S. meat exports.

In the interview, Seng said in the more advanced countries we export to, like Korea, Japan and Europe, traceability schemes are already part of the fabric of their domestic industries.

“It’s a matter of time before they’re going to require this, and it’s maybe only one food safety scare away,” he said. ”When it does occur, you might all of a sudden see some legislation that says, ‘Henceforth we’re going to impose traceability.’ What’s also bringing it closer to reality is that all of our major competitors, such as Australia and Canada, already have traceability in one form or the other, and they’re advertising it. It’s critical that we address this issue and address it soon.”

Seng said what the U.S. has seen as we’ve resumed trade with Russia and some other countries after the BSE issue is “they’re writing special programs.”

“ So if you don’t have a government-mandated system, all of sudden Korea says we’re going to mandate that you have traceability,” he said. “It’s going to divide the industry. There’ll be people who will do it and accrue premiums, and there’ll be people who won’t. Going forward, when making policy decisions we need to do it with an eye on what’s going on in our export markets and what our competition is doing.”

Nebraska’s crop diversity continues to shrink as its small grain harvest this year is at a very low ebb. Corn and soybeans dominate fields across Nebraska though there’s more crop diversity in western Nebraska with its wheat, dry bean, sunflower, sugar beets and proso millet crops. But as better corn and soybean varieties improve that can better tolerate western Nebraska weather conditions, such as drought,  the state’s crop diversity will continue to diminish and be dominate by corn and soybeans.

The final 2010 production for Nebraska wheat totaled 64.1 million bushels, 17 percent below last year’s crop and 13 percent below two years ago, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, Nebraska Field Office.

Area harvested for grain, at 1.49 million acres, is 110,000 less than last year. Average yield in Nebraska, at 43 bushels per acre, is 5 bushels below last year and 1 bushel below 2008.

Oat production in Nebraska during 2010 totaled 1.7 million bushels, 18 percent below the 2009 crop and the smallest crop since 1870. Planted acreage, at 90,000, is 10 percent below 2009. Area harvested for grain, at 25,000, is 5,000 below the level set a year ago. Yield, at 68 bushels per acre, is down 1 bushel from last year.

Chuck Woodside, General Manager of farmer-owned KAAPA Ethanol in Minden, will be the new Renewable Fuels Association chairman.

KAAPA Ethanol is a 60 million gallon per year farmer-owned ethanol facility. Woodside is succeeding Chris Standlee, Executive Vice President of Abengoa Bioenergy, who served for three one-year terms. The election was held as part of the RFA’s Annual Membership Meeting held in Washington, DC this week.

“The RFA remains the most effective voice for American ethanol producers, and I am honored the producer members of the board have selected me to lead the association,” said Woodside. “The ethanol industry is facing unprecedented challenges and on the precipice of unparalleled opportunity. As Chairman, I will seek to work with my fellow RFA members and those ethanol producers unaffiliated with the RFA to produce sound policy and market expansions that allow this industry to thrive.”

Woodside underscored numerous activities that will be the focus of the RFA in the year to come, including: efforts to extend current tax incentives for ethanol use, expanding ethanol markets through higher ethanol blend such as E15 and above, modifying fuel regulations to allow greater ethanol blending, challenging regulation of biogenic emissions by EPA, addressing incomplete science with respect to low carbon fuel regulations, developing next generation ethanol technologies, and expanding the market for distillers grains and other ethanol co-products.

“This is an exciting time for American ethanol production,” Woodside said. “If acted upon correctly, all of the challenges and opportunities before the industry will usher in a golden era of American ethanol production and help turn the corner toward true energy security in this country. The RFA and its members stand ready, as they always have, to help this industry build bridges and move ever forward.”

In a recent online article by Marc J. Rauch, exeuctive vice president/co-publisher of The Auto Channel, the oil and gasoline industry is “badering” the EPA “into stalling on giving an okay to mandating 15% ethanol in regular gasolines.”

According to Rauch, the group, FollowTheScience.com  “should really be called “Follow The Money – the Gasoline Industry’s Money.”

Rauch said the group “continue to claim that ethanol could harm engines and that it is untested.

“Ethanol does not harm engines, it cleans them,” he said. ”Racing teams use high level alcohol fuel because it delivers better performance. And nearly every vehicle built since the early 1990’s can use varying blends of ethanol/gasoline up to e85 without problem.”

Nebraska’s economy depends on its 2 billion-plus gallons ethanol industry in this state. Arguments against E15, which would take away from a growing ethanol industry in Nebraska that imports more than 95 percent of the ethanol its produces. E15 would add to that export demand and keep the industry growing and providing a vital market for our farmers’ corn and jobs for our citizens.

Fighting biofuels is only an excuse to increase our dependcy on oil, which is now mostly foreign oil, whether it comes from the Middle East or Canada or Mexico. Create greater demand for oil without other fuel alternatives only increases the importance of the proposed oil pipeline  that will bring oil from Alberta, Canada through Nebraska via the pipeline. Dry up demand for ethanol, it hurts Nebraska’s farmers, Nebraska’s economy and Nebraska’s environment.