ADAMS, NE — It may have been a chilly Spring morning in March but there were a lot of warm congratulations circulating among those who attended the ribbon cutting ceremony and grand opening for the installation of the new biofuel dispenser pump at the Midwest Farmers Cooperative Fueling site in Adams, Nebraska.
A portion of Midwest Farmers Cooperative’s fuel pump upgrades were paid for with funds from Access Ethanol Nebraska (AEN), a grant program administered by the Nebraska Corn Board, Nebraska Ethanol Board and Nebraska Department of Agriculture, along with the Nebraska Energy Office.
Nebraska’s federal award of approximately $2.3 million for the AEN program came from the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation’s Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership (BIP). USDA rules require that the USDA funds be matched dollar for dollar with funds from state, private industry or foundations.
Matching funds came from the Nebraska Corn Board through State Corn Checkoff funds paid by Nebraska corn farmers, the Nebraska Environmental Trust and Nebraska Energy Office LB-581 Clean Burning Fuels program.
Matching funds also were provided by individual ethanol plants and “Prime the Pump,” a nonprofit organized and funded by the ethanol industry to improve ethanol infrastructure.