Sorghum facility would provide farmers with stable rotation crop

A planned $90 million sorghum processing facility will provide farmers in the region a new rotation crop that fetches a stable price every year.  The facility, Treasure Valley Renewables, will also use waste from dairies and other agricultural sources.  “This is an absolutely great project for this area,” said Neill Goodfellow, director of Agrienergy Producers Association, a 25-farmer cooperative that will grow the sorghum used by the facility. “It will give farmers a stable price for that crop year after year.”  Nyssa, Ore., farmer Charlie Barlow, one of the farmers who will grow the sorghum, said the project has been several years in the making, and it’s exciting to see it start to come together. Kurt Christensen, one of the project organizers, said the facility will handle about 1,500 acres of sorghum a year. The high-biomass sorghum was developed specifically to be high in fiber. The fiber will be pulped and molded into paper products used by the restaurant industry.