REVITALIZING THE FARM ECONOMY THROUGH 

RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

 

Developing our nation’s on-farm renewable energy resources has the potential to boost farmer income, create jobs in rural communities, diversify our nation’s energy market, and protect our environment, according to a new report from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) entitled “The 2002 Farm Bill: Revitalizing the Farm Economy Through Renewable Energy Development.”

“With the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, Congress has the opportunity to marry agriculture and energy production,” said Carol Werner, executive director of EESI and co-author of the report.  “Diversifying our nation’s energy markets through the development of renewable power and fuels is a matter of national security.  By integrating renewable energy development initiatives throughout the Farm Bill, America’s farmers can be provided the support they need to develop their renewable energy resources, including bioenergy, wind, solar, and geothermal.”

Tremendous untapped renewable resources exist throughout America’s farmland.  Biomass feedstocks including crop residues (e.g. corn stover, rice straw, sugar cane bagasse, etc.), animal waste, and low-input energy crops can be utilized to produce electricity, heat, fuels, chemicals, and a variety of marketable products, creating new businesses and jobs.  Biomass can be co-fired with coal in existing facilities to produce electricity, or combusted in dedicated biomass plants, lowering the emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases.  Burdensome agricultural waste streams can be converted into revenue streams. 

Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from biomass and blended with gasoline or used as a stand-alone fuel.  According to the Argonne National Laboratory, cellulosic ethanol can achieve over a 100 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when compared to gasoline.  Biofuels, like ethanol, can be produced along with biobased chemicals, polymers, and other products in “biorefineries,” lowering production costs and producing several marketable products.

Technological advances have brought down the cost of wind power substantially.  Farmers can reap great economic benefit from developing these renewable resources.  According to the American Wind Energy Association, wind developers near Clear Lake and Storm Lake, Iowa pay rent to 115 landowners to site their wind turbines. They pay about $2000 per turbine, which require about ¼ acre of land each, for a total of $640,000 per year. The wind projects also generate $2 million per year in tax revenue to the counties, and have created 40 new jobs. 

EESI recommends that renewable energy production be integrated throughout the Farm Bill, including the Conservation, Research, and Rural Development titles, as well as in related appropriations and tax legislation, and also recommends several new initiatives that could be included in an Energy title of the Farm Bill.  EESI’s recommendations include:

      CONSERVATION TITLE

q       Conservation Reserve Program: Allow wind turbines and biomass harvesting for the production of biopower, biofuels, and biobased products on CRP land where appropriate and consistent with other conservation goals.  

q       Natural Resource Conservation Service: Provide technical assistance to farmers and farmer-owned cooperatives to convert animal waste operations over to anaerobic digesters.  These systems capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to produce heat and electricity.

 

CREDIT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT TITLES

q       Rural Business-Cooperative Service: Provide grants and loan guarantees to establish cooperatives or expand existing cooperatives to undertake wind, biopower, biofuel, and biobased product development projects.

q       Commodity Credit Corporation Bioenergy Program: Expand the Bioenergy Program to compensate rural electric cooperatives, and other energy producers, for purchasing agricultural biomass for the production of electricity.

q       Rural Utilities Service: Provide support to the Rural Electric Cooperatives to establish net metering services, standardized interconnection, and increased transmission efficiency, all of which are vital to developing renewable energy.

 

      RESEARCH AND EXTENSION TITLE

q       Biomass Research and Development Initiative: Fully fund the biomass initiative as established in the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000 and Executive Order 13134.

q       Agricultural Research Service: Increase funding within the Bioenergy and Energy Alternatives program for the development of biofuels and energy crops.

q       Land-Grant Universities: Expand the mission of the Cooperative Extension Service (CES) to provide education and technical assistance to farmers for the development and marketing of renewable energy resources.

 

      NEW INITIATIVES

q       Renewable Resource Assessment: Provide grants to state and local governments, universities, or the CES to undertake renewable resource assessments on agricultural lands.  Farmers must first know the value and extent of their resources to develop them.

q       Renewable Energy Standards: Establish a federal Renewable Portfolio standard for power, and a Renewable Fuels Standard for transportation fuels, requiring an increasing amount of energy used in the country to be derived from renewable sources.

q       Federal Purchasing Programs: Require all federal agencies to increase their use of renewable power, biofuels, and biobased products by establishing purchasing programs.

q       Equipment Testing for Biofuels:  Provide funding and assistance to equipment manufacturers to test and certify their gasoline and diesel engines to use biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel.   

 

“Renewable energy development on America’s farms can revitalize rural America, greatly improve national security by diversify our energy markets, and help protect our environment – truly a ‘win-win-win’ scenario for farmers and the nation,” said Werner.  

The full report can be found at http://www.eesi.org/publications/Farm Bill Policy Paper.pdf

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 The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization with the mission of promoting the development of public policy options that will sustain people, the environment and natural resources.  EESI was founded in 1984 by a bipartisan group of Members of Congress.