Even when other regions in the state of Oregon are a part of renewable energy and have established wind farms, Malheur County is more interested in products that have the ability to be grown into renewable energy. This brings a brand new cash crop into the county. One group of farmers from around the locality are going to be having a public meeting at 10 am on Monday in the Boulevard Grange in order to assess the interest levels of farmers in forming a coopeartive owned by the growers itself of high biomass sorghum. “It has been proven that this crop does not only grow nicely in our area, it also produces enough yield to make it a profitable crop for the farmer,” said the President of Renewable Ag Energy Inc. (who are helping the farmers with this project), Kurt Christensen. “The crops value is going to be enhanced when we complete construction of a processing facility which is fully owned by the cooperative and is going to be converting sorghum into a burnable, compressed product.”

Randon Wilson has been chosen to direct this initiative and to finance the cooperative. He has also directed the Snake River cooperative for sugar which led to the creation of Amalgamated Sugar Co. as well as another grower cooperative, United Onions USA Inc. “This is the correct time for people like us to start getting involved with the energy market & there are very little crops which can easily be grown for profit in our area and also give us a net energy gain,” said Christensen. “Net gain from energy is supposed to be the difference between energy used for growing a crop & the energy gotten from burning the crop in order to produce energy in the form of heat or electricity.” Another advantage here is that any carbon dioxide which is produced and released into the atmosphere during this process is removed in the growing season. He also added, “This is going to make the cogeneration of electricity free from greenhouse gas production.” Christensen also said that they would be needing close to 3,000 acres of land in order to make this project feasible & initially they are going to only be focusing on growing a particular type of sorghum though we could start growing other different types of sorghum in the near future as well as other profitable renewable energy crops.

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