Well, it’s Canada Day today but I have opted to commemorate this National holiday by writing about the US Farm Bill. Perhaps this is a rather strange way of approaching things, but I can tell you that up here in Canada we do not have a Farm Bill or any comparable farm legislation, for better or for worse.
What is the Farm Bill?
Every five years, Congress revisits and passes the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is a gargantuan piece of legislation that emerged to provide emergency bailouts for millions of farmers and unemployed citizens during the Dust Bowl era and Great Depression. Today, the Farm Bill has emerged as arguably the most influential piece of legislation affecting agriculture, land use and food in the US.
In his book, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, Daniel Imhoff highlights specific reasons why the Farm Bill is of utmost importance to US citizens:
· The twilight of the cheap-oil age and the onset of unpredictable climatic conditions;
· Looming water shortages and crashing fish populations;
· Broken rural economies;
· Escalating medical and economic costs of child and adult obesity;
· Record payouts to corporate farms that aren’t even losing money;
· Over 35 million Americans, half of them children, who don’t get enough to eat;
· Almost 50 percent of all commodity subsidies went to 5 percent of eligible farmers in 2005;
· Subsidies help the largest farms to acquire the best land and squeeze out smaller growers;
· Euphoria over corn and soybean expansion for biofuels.
Why Talk About It?
Clearly, given the current climate (politically and ecologically) it is important that the US Farm Bill address issues of agriculture emissions. The agriculture sector is responsible for approximately 70% of total US emissions of nitrous oxide (N20) and 30% of total US methane emissions. Unfortunately, as it stands, it appears that the 2007 Farm Bill does little to address issues of emissions and greenhouse gas emissions and has chosen to focus on the production of renewable bio-energies. Biofuels and the Farm Bill
There are 10 Farm Bill proposals listed on the USDA proposal. The 9th proposal, conveniently titled Energy, discusses renewable energy. In this proposal, the USDA suggest that:
Expand Federal research focused on renewable fuels and bioenergy and reauthorize, revise, and expand programs that provide valuable tools for the advancement of renewable energy production and commercialization.
They continue:
In fiscal year 2005, U.S. ethanol and biodiesel production made from all sources was nearly 4 billion gallons and 91 million gallons, respectively. Comparatively, 140 billion gallons of gasoline and over 60 billion gallons of diesel fuel were consumed in the U.S. in 2005. Even with the success of corn and soybean biofuels, to substantially reduce America’s dependence on imported oil, biofuels will need to be made from cellulosic processes that use feedstocks such as specialty crop biomass, switch grass, corn stover, straw, and other woody biomass. Some cellulosic conversion processes have been scientifically demonstrated to be capable of producing biofuels and other energy. Limited government support, in partnership with the private sector, will help to advance commercial application of these innovations. Government support of cellulosic energy is needed because the scale of investment required is very large, the industry is new and thus faces uncertain risks, and there is an urgent need to diversify energy sources for economic and security reasons. In terms of solutions to the above mentioned problems, in the 2007 Farm Bill, the USDA are proposing that more than $1.6 billion be spent on renewable energy funding and target programs to cellulosic ethanol projects. They contend that these initiatives will advance renewable energy by:
- Providing $500 Million for a Bioenergy and Biobased product research initiative. Advances in technology play an important role in the future of renewable energy. Our scientists, farmers and entrepreneurs must coordinate efforts to continue improvements in crop yields and work to reduce the cost of producing alternative fuels.
- Providing $500 Million for Renewable Energy Systems and Efficiency Improvements Grants Program. This program supports small alternative energy and energy efficiency projects that directly help farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses.
- Providing $210 Million to support an estimated $2.1 Billion in loan guarantees for Cellulosic Ethanol Projects in rural areas. This program will advance the development of cellulosic ethanol production.
I have already blogged about some of the issues concerning bio fuels (see: Environmental Groups Condemn IPCC Push for Biofuels, Food as Oil?) as have many other folks on this site, so I will not reiterate the myriad concerns and issues surrounding the production of biofuel, especially from traditional food crops. I can say that as it stands I am slightly disappointed (although not the least bit surprised) that this Farm Bill is not directing a little more energy towards addressing issues of agriculture emissions.
Find out more:
Imhoff, Daniel. 2007. Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill. Watershed Media. University of California Press. USDA. 2007. America’s Farm Bill. Available at: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdafarmbill?navtype=SU&navid=FARM_BILL_FORUMS
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Things are done alot differently here in the US. As being a Canadian now living in the US I can attest. I find it interesting in your article and throughout other write-ups on the cellulose ethanol front that scientists say we’re almost there… Have they ever heard of IOGEN? Or better yet BlueFire Ethanol? These companies are ready to deploy today. Is Canada going to really help IOGEN move forward? I know that BlueFire Ethanol has received a 40 million dollar grant from the DOE and they will likely be the receipient of monies to help project financing through the loan guarantee program (4 billion alone earmatked for 2008 biofuel projects). Both these companies have produced cellulosic ethanol and the only barrier now is the investor support, which will be supported by our tax dollars regardless. Renewable energy companies that can address the GHG emmissions and produce on large scales are our up and coming Exxons and is truely the next big thing to hit the stock market since the dot com days, only sustainable… North America has a big thirst to quench for energy and that’s why these projects will move forward and investor support will come eventually. This is the biggest investment oportunity that has come around in a long time and I am amazed that most are blind to it. At the same time, these renewable energy companies are also helping make an impact on our climate in the effort to reduce GHG’s, BlueFire Ethanol actually reduces the GHG’s by over 90% compared to fossil fuels. California Gov. has mandated to reduce GHG’s by 20% by 2020. This will force blenders to use cellulose ethanol to meat that mandate and there will be 1 company that will be able to fill that need… BlueFire, with it’s current project in California for 18 million gallons and future ones. The big difference betweed these two front runners for Cellulose Ethanol is Iogen is using a narrow feedstock whereas BlueFire uses post sorted trash from any landfill, like Waste Management for instance, and turns a wide feedstock of green waste into ethanol using their patented concentrated acid hydrolysis system. That means that the growing concern of North America’s trash can actually be turned into energy all the while near populated areas making distribution less costly than trucking in corn ethanol from the midwest… Not to mention BlueFire’s feedstock is free, actually on it’s way to be thrown away, whwer as corn ethanol’s feedstock continues to drive the price of corn up and hence the domino effect to corn syrup, beef etc…
My money is on BlueFire, which will be America’s fastest growing cellulose company witht he jump start it has. The equivalent would be investing in Google 4 years ago, with the biggest difference that BlueFire is trading now, today for anyone to invest in. They trade under the symbol: BFRE and publish their entire procedure on their website, http://www.bluefireethanol.com
America wants to become energy independant, and the Farm bill is just one more factor that will help that become a reality.
Jess, thanks for the post on the farm bill. These days, agriculture and energy policy are inextricably linked.
I think you miss the mark a bit when you talk about the problems with biofuels support in the farm bill. The sections you mention are all talking about supporting cellulosic ethanol development, which utilizes non-food crops and agricultural or forestry wastes to produce ethanol. While the problems you blogged about here are all valid when it comes to biofuels - using edible crops or prime farmland to produce biofuels puts pressure on food prices and clearing virign rainforest for palm oil production is just plain stupid - using plentiful amounts of existing agricultural, forestry and urban waste streams that include cellulosic materials (e.g. corn stover, wheat straw, rice hulls, timber slash and mill residue, etc.) to produce ethanol is pretty smart energy policy. While conventional corn, and to a slightly lesser degree, soy-based biofuels are marginally beneficial at best and potentially destructive at worst and lack the potential to scale to a meaningful level of output, cellulosic biofuels offer a largely environmentally benign and potentially quite scalable (partial) solution to both our oil dependence and transportation’s contribution to climate change.
The USDOE and USDA estimated that over 1 billion dry tons of biomass could be collected in the US every year by the 2030s, enough to produce offset approximately 1/3rd of our current oil use (see this study [pdf]). If we adopt plug-in hybrid vehicles that slash our oil demand by 1/3rd, we’ve suddenly found a very low-carbon way to power our vehicle fleet: plug-in hybrids using cellulosic ethanol or other advanced biofuels for their liquid fuel.
I welcome the Farm Bill’s support for cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels development, as they offer a way to utilize biomass for transportation that has the potential to avoid the pitfalls and problems of corn ethanol while making a real impact on greenhouse gas emissions and our oil addiction.
James is a bit too optimistic though when he says “Both these companies have produced cellulosic ethanol and the only barrier now is the investor support, which will be supported by our tax dollars regardless.”
It is true that both companies have produced cellulosic ethanol on a pilot scale, as have several other companies. But there is a large difference between the proof-of-concept pilot scale demonstration plants that have very little production capacity and a fully-scaled commercial plant. I don’t doubt that someone - probably one of these two companies - will make it to commercial scale soon, but that is not an effortless transition.
Additionally, while the production of cellulosic ethanol from various feedstocks will likely be perfected (or at least adequately demonstrated) soon, harvesting/gathering, transportation and handling large amounts of feedstocks is not a trivial manner either, and challenges remain here as well. In fact, I would argue that finding and collecting suitable feedstocks at large enough quantities, low enough costs and predictable enough supplies remains the largest challenge to the full commercialization of cellulosic ethanol.
So yes, several companies are almost there. But securing investment isn’t the only hurdle left for these companies, and I wouldn’t go investing in them thinking they’ll be up and running in no time flat. Significant (but ultimately solvable) challenges remain to the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol and there’s no guarantees which company will solve them first, or best. The provisions in the Farm Bill and in the energy package will certainly help though…
Wow… Thanks for these indepth comments. I must say I think you are both misrepresenting/reading too far into what I wrote (although I contend I was not as clear as I could have been as I will blame the long weekend for that!).
My conclusion and critique was simply that the proposed Farm Bill does not do enough to address agricultural emmissions (which make up a significant % of the US’s total GHG emmissions). I highlighted the energy initiatives because, as we all agree, they are a step in the right direction. I did however want to add a needed caviat about the negative impacts of food-based fuels.
Thanks for reading and for the extra food for thought.