I’M ONE OF THOSE IN THE BUSHEL – by Katherine Stockdale, Hardin County, Century Farm Landowner
By Kathy Stockdale
In response to Mr. Kruse’s article recently entitled, There are a few in every bushel, I will admit I am one of those “few”.
I find it interesting that you said you participated in the demonstration at the Iowa State Capital lobbying against a bill that you say would “bar the use of eminent domain for virtually anything” Have you even read HF2104?! It plain and simply says NO eminent domain FOR CARBON OXIDE PIPELINES. It plain and simply covers only C02 pipelines.
I find it interesting that you actually joined in a demonstration. When we as landowners and farmers had peaceful rallies, we were called, “activists, environmentalists, and extremists.’” Your group consisted of many Corn Grower’s staff and Summit employees. I assume many of them were paid to be there that day. We as farmers and landowners have been fighting for 5 years using our own time and money. Many of us also paying lawyer fees to help us protect our private property rights for our next generations. I applaud our House members and our Dauntless Dozen in the Senate for supporting our constitutional rights. That is the oath they took when they were sworn in.
You think Senator Klemish’s bill SF2067 would solve the eminent domain issue for “reasonable” people. So, are your “reasonable” people the ones who are willing to sell away their property rights for a big enough offer? Sorry, but no amount of money is worth losing my property rights. That is how China became the country it is today. Hopefully you have read Representative Charley Thomson’s, “20 Legal and Policy Problems with SF 2067? Senator Klemish has also punished the Dauntless Dozen Senators who stood up for constitutional rights by removing them from committee positions, especially Senator Doug Campbell who was stripped of all of his committees? I believe there are now about 16 Republican Central committees who have sent letters to Censor Senator Klemish.
It looks a little suspicious when Senator Klemish received $5,000 from Bruce Rastetter on November 18,2025 and again on December 24,2025, just before the new legislative session started.
It seems Iowa Corn Growers like to portray ethanol in a gloom and doom scenario, when in actuality Ethanol has been doing very well for the last several years.
“U.S. ethanol producers have officially set a new ethanol production record in 2025, according to the latest EIA data. For the week ending June 6, 2025, output hit an all-time high of 1,120 thousand barrels per day (bbl/day), surpassing the previous record of 1,119k set in late 2024. The record reflects strong seasonal demand, expanding plant efficiency, and favorable blending margins”
“The official EIA data released today confirm that 2024 was a banner year for the U.S. ethanol industry,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “Our nation’s ethanol producers helped lead the way toward American energy dominance, achieving record highs for both production and exports”
We all know the biggest competitor for our Ethanol is Brazil. And who owns ethanol plants to compete against us, Bruce Rastetter! We give him control over these pipelines and ethanol plants here in the Midwest, our markets may very well be dictated by Bruce Rastetter.
A couple farmers recently did a comparison of what ethanol plants in Iowa and Nebraska were paying for corn. Some of the plants in Nebraska are on the new Tallgrass pipeline. They compared prices on the current day and 6 months later during harvest. In every example the plants in Iowa were higher than any of the prices in Nebraska.
I hope Mr. Kruse has seen the latest Summit maps filed in the Iowa Utilities Commission Dockets on Phase 2, that are about 80% unsigned easements. If this pipeline was a good idea, Landowners would be standing at Summit’s door begging to sign easements.
I should state that we live on a Century Farm. My husband and I have farmed together for almost 50 years. Our son has been a part of our operation for 10 years and his son talks about one day wanting to farm also. We went thru the 80’s just like you, but we survived. We have also managed to increase the number of acres we farm.
I think Zach Brummer from Farm Bureau sums it up very well in the February 4,2026 edition of the Farm Bureau Spokesman, “In closing, I want to acknowledge thar while the current outlook, especially for row crop farmers, appears challenging, market sentiment can change quickly. Commodity markets are cyclical and better times will return.
We are resourceful, determined and stubborn. We know how to hunker down and wait out the storm.”
That is the voice of the true farmer. This pipeline was already to have been in the ground for almost three years and Ethanol has survived. We need the plain and simple bill passed by the Iowa House, HF2104 with no amendments, No eminent domain for C02 pipelines.
It still allows Summit to build if they can get the easements and protects private property rights.
Kathy Stockdale
Iowa Falls, Iowa
Article by Kruse:
https://www.farm-news.com/2026/02/13/there-are-a-few-in-every-bushel/
There are a few in every bushel
By David Kruse, CommStock – | Feb 13, 2026
I did participate in a demonstration, so to speak, at the Iowa State Capitol. I joined ethanol and CO2 pipeline supporters who were lobbying against an Iowa House Bill that would bar use of eminent domain for virtually anything. That was overkill. It was no surprise that the bill passed in the House, however it is not going further from there and is like the bill that Gov. Reynolds vetoed last session. There was a strong show of opposition from the ethanol industry to the bill personified in the group I joined at the Capitol. House members who voted for this bill should not receive the endorsement of the Iowa Corn Growers Association or Iowa Farm Bureau Federation next election.
I cannot admit to understanding the opposition. Easement compensation that we accepted so-far eclipsed anything comparable to eminent domain, that it did not even enter our minds as relevant. Historically, values set by the eminent domain process were based on farmland values. The easement compensation paid by Summit Carbon Solutions was based upon the value of the use so was a multiple of that. This was something that I had long argued for. So why did I drive to Des Moines to support it? Because we need the corn demand that it will generate.
Our 500 acres of corn in Clay County this year yielded 270 bushels per acre. That was a record yield for us, representing the rising national corn yield that USDA says produced over 17 billion bushels of corn in 2025. My son tells me that our 2026 cost of production is $4.58 a bushel. You may note that the price of cash corn is not that high and with the projected carryover, the corn price could fall below $4 this year. When I started farming over 50 years ago, my average corn yield was not much more than half our 2025 yield. The trendline for corn yields continues to climb, which means that in order to be profitable we need to grow demand. This has been a challenge all my career as a market analyst and market maker. I did not only spend effort growing more corn, I worked with the industry to grow more demand. Unless Robert F. Kennedy decides that people need to eat four meals per day we are limited as to the domestic growth of meat production. Livestock production was not enough to support corn market profitability so I got involved in the organization and promotion of the ethanol industry. That industry now utilizes over 5.6 billion bushels of corn annually and became the third leg under the stool that corn demand along with feed demand and exports sits upon. Ethanol production is the most successful creation of wealth for the farm community that I have seen develop in my lifetime. As long as our corn productivity increases, we need to grow demand. Where are we at with that today?
President Donald Trump said that we would go through a period of pain, but that his new trade deals would deliver a gain. We could buy new tractors and more land. Personally, I never believed that and I do not think that is going to happen. We are not seeing ag commodity export growth result from his trade agenda. The problem with exports is that we do not control them. Buyers do. Geopolitics interferes. We also have competitors, and our track record is that we are losing market share to them. I do not see the switches that we can throw that will change that. I do not think that we are the world’s first choice to buy from. So that leaves us with biofuel as the remaining fruit that can be harvested to fill the need for demand and profit generation … that we can control and manage.
There are a number of different ways in which to grow biofuel demand, but the greatest opportunity with the most potential is low-carbon ethanol. Brazil produces low-carbon ethanol. which is preferred by most export buyers and required as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) feedstock. The potential market for SAF is large enough to grow ethanol demand for some time to come. U.S. ethanol plants have lowered their carbon intensity scores since inception, but the way at scale to qualify as low-carbon ethanol requires CO2 sequestration. The ethanol industry in Nebraska has brought CO2 sequestration on line with the Tall Grass CO2 pipeline which 70% of Nebraska ethanol plants have hooked onto. That means that Nebraska has taken the lead as the low carbon ethanol producer in the U.S.
Plants with their CO2 sequestered can add enormous value. Iowa plants that intend to sequester CO2 through the Summit pipeline have plans to immediately expand production by 25% to 100%. This means they need more corn, which means improved prices and basis levels. This would be the equivalent of ethanol industry 2.0 for its impact on corn demand, prices and basis. We have seen this once before with ethanol industry 1.0, so we know what the result will be.
CO2 pipeline critics have cited opposition to use of eminent domain as their primary reason for opposing the industry. Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Klimesh introduced SF 2067, a bill which would solve the eminent domain issue for reasonable people. Instead of the IUB approving a specific route for pipelines, they instead designate a corridor of five miles to either side of the route that the pipeline can deviate from in order to find landowners willing to sell an easement. Summit Carbon has over 74% of the easements needed now and with this much latitude within a corridor, the need for use of eminent domain to find a path forward becomes unlikely. The bill needs to be approved by the legislature while we still have a governor that will sign it. This is a Solomon wisdom-like solution to a vexing problem. Of course, if you don’t want corn to be profitable, prefer state budgets to remain unbalanced and are bothered in general by progress, a reasonable solution such as provided by SF 2067 may not change your mind. As I said, there are a few in every bushel — more than a few in the Iowa House.