Colorado Corn

The U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) will focus its biofuels research efforts into a handful of key areas and coordinate its work – and funding – with other federal agencies.

That’s the consensus of USDA and a group of stakeholders, including the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA); sorghum and wheat commodity associations; biofuels advocates, developers and producers; the Corn Ethanol Research Center, and others. Representatives of those groups, the Department of Energy and other agencies, met with directors and scientists from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) this week to participate in developing the next five-year roadmap for USDA’s bioenergy research program. The program is five years old.

There was broad agreement among those attending the conference that USDA’s research programs should continue to modernize as bioenergy becomes a more mainstream market and technology continues to evolve, according to NCGA Director of Research and Business Development Nathan Fields.

“The major topics included development and production of new feedstocks, conversion efficiencies of new and existing feedstocks and development of improved co-products, including both distillers dried grains and industrial products,” Fields says.

While the group did not make financial recommendations, Fields says there was consensus that USDA could appropriately focus its research into key areas, among them being:
* Update the life cycle analysis of biofuel production to reflect modern and developing technologies, showing the sustainability and reduced carbon impact of renewable biofuels
* The short-term and long-term effects of removing stover from fields to use as a feedstock for biofuels
* Improving efficiency in converting corn starch into ethanol
* Optimizing and aligning technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol
* Developing models for land use and rotations for grain, oil and energy crops
* DDGS optimization and its long-term potential in animal agriculture

“The stakeholders understand that ARS by itself doesn’t have the budget or staff to address all of these issues in depth,” Fields notes. “We agreed with ARS’ own recommendation that they partner with other parts of USDA and other federal agencies to move forward in as many areas as possible.”

USDA will announce revisions to ARS programs in 2008.