News Coverage
Argus Leader: Farmers to Get Cash for Corncobs
Goal is to spur cellulosic ethanol
Published June 16, 2009
Producers in South Dakota soon will be able to get payments for corncobs and switchgrass they collect, harvest, store and transport for cellulosic ethanol production, though at least one environmental group still questions the idea's wisdom.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been taking public comments and now will start writing administrative rules for producers to apply for the payments.
He hopes those payments can begin "in the next few months" under the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which he wrote and was included in the 2008 farm bill.
With no commercial biorefineries in operation at this time, Thune hopes the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which also eventually will pay producers to grow switchgrass close to existing or planned biorefineries, will jump-start cellulosic ethanol production.
Craig Cox of the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group said using perennial energy crops such as switchgrass as a feedstock for biofuels "is far preferable to using corn or soybeans or woody biomass."
But his group worries about diverting land away from food production to produce energy crops.
"We can't afford to divert much corn away from food production," said Cox, who works out of Ames, Iowa, and is the Midwest vice president for the group. "That's the fundamental question that confronts us when we think of biofuel production. How much of the land and water can we devote to producing fuel before we start having really serious unintended consequences on the commodities markets and on the environment?"
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