Department of Agriculture offers grants to Missouri
fuel retailers to install biofuel infrastructure
The Missouri Department of Agriculture is now
accepting applications from Missouri fuel retailers for the
Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership (BIP) grant program
to accelerate the use and availability of higher blends
of ethanol fuel as clean burning, renewable alternatives
to conventional unleaded gasoline and, in turn, drive
economic development in the state.
Last month, Gov. Nixon announced that Missouri
will receive $2.9 million in grant funds through the
BIP. This project enables the Missouri Department of
Agriculture, with support from the Missouri Corn
Merchandising Council, the state’s ethanol refineries
and a national ethanol-industry-funded program called
Prime the Pump, to work with retailers to install as many
as 171 fuel pumps and expand access to renewable fuels
in Missouri.
Missouri fuel retailers can participate through
a special block grant program funded by the USDA
grant and administered by the Missouri Department of
Agriculture. Funding will be awarded to eligible business
owners to purchase and install ethanol fuel pumps
(E15-E85 certified blender, E85 dedicated) and storage
tanks.
“In Missouri, agriculture continues to be our
state’s number one economic driver, and an important
contributor to that is our renewable fuels sector,” said
Director of Agriculture Richard Fordyce. “The BIP
grant will make ethanol blends more readily available in
our state. While gas stations make it easy for motorists
to choose between regular and super grade petroleum
at the pump, few stations allow motorists to make a
similar choice when it comes to a blend of ethanol and
petroleum.”
The grant application and guidelines are available
at agriculture.mo.gov. The deadline for submitting BIP
applications is Jan. 16, 2016.
Retailers interested in participating in this program
should contact Missouri Corn Director of Marketing
Bradley Schad at (800) 827-4181 or Jane McIntosh at the
Missouri Department of Agriculture at (573) 751-4211.
Missouri Gov. Nixon currently serves as the 2015
vice chairman of the Governors’ Biofuels Coalition. The
33-state bipartisan organization was founded more than
20 years ago to increase the use of ethanol based fuels,
decrease the nation’s dependence on imported energy
resources, improve the environment and stimulate the
national economy. Gov. Nixon will become chairman of
the group in January 2016.
CRP Enrollment cont. from page 23
softens the economic hardship for landowners at the same time that it provides ecological benefits. Contract duration
is between 10 and 15 years. The long-term goal of the program is to re-establish native plant species on marginal
agricultural lands for the primary purpose of preventing soil erosion and improving water quality and related benefits
of reducing loss of wildlife habitat.
Contracts on 1.64 million acres of CRP are set to expire on Sept. 30, 2016. Producers with expiring contracts or
producers with environmentally sensitive land are encouraged to evaluate their options under CRP.
Since it was established on Dec. 23, 1985, CRP has:
• Prevented more than 9 billion tons of soil from eroding, enough soil to fill 600 million dump trucks;
• Reduced nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to annually tilled cropland by 95 and 85 percent respectively;
• Sequestered an annual average of 49 million tons of greenhouse gases, equal to taking 9 million cars off the
road.
Since 1996, CRP has created nearly 2.7 million acres of restored wetlands.
For more information, visit a local FSA office or www.fsa.usda.gov/conservation.
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HEARTBEAT | WINTER 2015