News

Minnesota Farmers Union president bullish on sustainable aviation fuel

The president of Minnesota Farmers Union sees a lot of potential in sustainable aviation fuels.

Gary Wertish tells Brownfield demand could approach 40 billion gallons.

“We met with some Delta (Airlines) officials and there’s really a lot of interest in that, and we’re looking forward to that. But it’s going to take a huge investment to get that off the ground, which has a lot of promise for farmers.”

He says MFU would like farmers to have access as the sustainable aviation fuels industry grows.

“Somehow we’re hoping we can get this structured a lot like our ethanol plants are now where farmer or community-owned, even locally owned in rural communities as we build this out. And there is a lot of potential there, we really need to have farmers and local people have part of it.”

Minnesota recently launched a first-of-its-kind Sustainable Aviation Fuels Hub that stakeholders say will help scale the market with the urgency commercial aviation needs to reach net zero by 2050.