It’s easy to understand why people are mad at oil companies.

Arab sheikhs are raking in big bucks and fat-cat executives are smoking $100 bills while it takes some people an hour’s wage just to drive to work and back.

That animosity has boiled up so much, it’s splashed over on the biofuels industry. Ethanol and biodiesel are being accused both for increasing fuel and food costs. The argument is not based on logic, but it is getting a lot of attention.

Given the current environment, where biofuels are being blamed for everything from starving children to higher movie prices, it doesn’t seem like the best time to be declaring yourself the state’s alternative energy capital.

But that’s what St. Joseph leaders did at a ground breaking ceremony for Terra Bioenergy. Once it’s up and running, Terra will join Ag Processing Inc. and Northwest Biodiesel as biodiesel manufacturers in the city. Lifeline Foods produces ethanol from corn at its facility. There’s also Golden Triangle in Craig and MGP Ingredients in Atchison making ethanol.

Studying the history of this industry provides plenty of reason to be bullish about the future of biofuels.

It has nothing to do with government incentives, crude oil futures or gasoline consumption.

It has everything to do with the people behind the business.

They’ve got sun tanned faces and work calloused hands. It was farmers who built the renewable fuels industry from the ground up — the very ground that they till to raise the crops that feed and power the world.

There were plenty of skeptics along the way the last 30 years, but they shrugged them off and just kept pressing on until ethanol became a household word. Mean spirited jibes don’t cause much anxiety these days.

Building a $25 million processing plant has no guaranteed returns, but farming has always been a risky business and being at the mercy of Northwest Missouri’s weather prepares you to ride out some economic storms. The fuel market is sure to have some ups and downs, but when farmers are both supplying the raw product and using the end product, it provides some market security.

One investor I talked to is an ag producer and an Iraqi war veteran. A year in the desert convinced him that the United States needs to do something to wean itself from foreign oil. He’s not sure grain-based fuels hold the answer, but believes it’s a step in the right direction.

Critics who want to dismantle the biofuels industry will discover just how tenacious farmers and old soldiers can be.

Business editor Susan Mires writes

a weekly column. She can be reached

at susanm@npgco.com.