by Lura Roti, for South Dakota Farmers Union
Although his corn has a ways to grow before harvest 2015, like most corn farmers, Orrie Swayze knows where his crop will go once it leaves his Wilmot farm.
“Most all of my corn goes into ethanol. Our local elevator supplies a local plant,” says Swayze, 71, who only farms part-time these days, entrusting most of the fieldwork to his son, Patrick.
The Swayze’s corn is among more than 361 million bushels of South Dakota corn converted to ethanol and its co-products each year; supplying an industry which contributes almost $4 billion to the state’s economy annually, according to a 2012 South Dakota State University study.
Swayze played a significant role in the grassroots efforts to welcome the budding industry to South Dakota in the mid-80s – a time when, as Swayze puts it, “The whole state’s economy was in the doldrums and our farmers and rural communities were hurting.”
Working closely with South Dakota Farmers Union, an organization he has been a member of since 1972, and a few local Legislators, Swayze was one of four farmers who dedicated themselves to advocating for the renewable fuel.
“Governor Janklow called the four of us the ‘Ethanol Missionaries,'” he says, recalling the work that he, Roland Pester, Jim Pufhal and Roland Schnable did to get a state-based cash incentive passed. Dollars were raised through a pipeline tax on all petroleum products to encourage ethanol plants to build in South Dakota. “We were always there, lobbying committee meetings and testifying.”
New to advocacy, Swayze says he was driven by the knowledge that ethanol could help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. “I’m a Vietnam Vet.
My brother was killed over there. I knew oil was at the center of nearly every conflict and I thought, at least I can do this to end this type of war,” says Swayze, a pilot who flew 100 missions over North Vietnam.
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