Sunday, November 27, 2011
www.wcfcourier.com
Winds of change Farmers find profits blowing in the wind
By JIM OFFNER jim.offner@wcfcourier.com
WATERLOO — Of the 480 acres Tim Hemphill owns and 1,200 he farms near Milford, he sets aside three for two wind-turbine towers. In exchange for the small plot of land Hemphill would have devoted to his corn and soybean products, he collects $20,000 a year. “It’s worth it, even with high grain prices,” Hemphill said. “When we put them up, corn was around $3 a bushel, and it has doubled since then, but it’s still worth it.” “The check’s always good,” he said. Hemphills’s towers have been up for two years, and the checks will flow in quarterly for the run of a 30-year contract, he said. Hemphill said he is but one of an increasing number of Iowa farmers who have watched wind towers go up on their acreages. “There’s quite a few farmers I know who have them,” he said. “My neighbor has six of them and another with seven.” Hemphill said his motivation transcends finances, although he acknowledges the income certainly doesn’t hurt. “I think we need more green energy,” he said. “People in California and the cities have brownouts. Besides, it’s a good revenue source.” Iowa is home to 80 wind installations and has more than 50 manufacturers in the wind supply chain, including two large turbine assemblers and two blade and three tower and lift manufacturers. Professional service businesses throughout the state also have expanded to meet the demand from the wind industry. Turbine towers still pale in comparison to cornstalks as dominant features of Iowa’s rural landscape, but
they are gaining ground, experts say. Iowa currently ranks second behind Texas in wind energy production, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Iowa is home to 1,999 wind turbines that produce nearly 2,800 megawatts of electricity each year, according to the office of Gov. Terry Branstad. For farmers and their surrounding communities, it translates to “green” in more than energy. There’s plenty of money to be made, officials say. “The wind farms have $11 million in annual landowner lease payments,” said Mark Douglas, executive director of the Iowa Utilities Association. “As far as communities, there are obviously supplies purchased in local communities and construction workers spending money in local communities. There’s some property taxes that go and hundreds of millions of dollars that are invested in manufacturing facilities in Iowa. So, it’s been very, very beneficial.” There are trade-offs, though, said Mike Duffy, extension economist and professor of economics at Iowa State University. “It definitely has an effect, I guess you could argue, positive and negative,” he said. “It adds a stream of income, so that would get factored in. Let’s say you’re looking at a 40-acre plot. You’d lose the amount of easement, but you would gain the expected income from the electric generation. So, a lot depends on the nature of the contract.” On balance, it’s a gain, he said. “In a general sense, that will end up being positive; it becomes another factor,” Duffy said. “When I do my appraisal class and talk to students about it, you typically think of corns
See WIND, page H3