There’s nothing indirect about the land use changes reported in the most recent summary from USDA, which shows that the only land use in the United States that is declining is cropland.
According to the report, “Major Uses of Land in the United States 2007,” the amount of land in the United States devoted to growing crops declined by 34 million acres – or nearly 8 percent – between 2002 and 2007. At 408 million acres, total cropland was at its lowest level since records were started in 1945.
Cropland accounted for 18 percent of the total land area in the country – the third largest land use behind forest (30%) and grassland (27%) – both of which increased over the same five-year period while cropland declined.
The smallest total use of land in the U.S. is urban, at 61 million or 3 percent. However, while urban land use accounts for the smallest percentage, the USDA report shows that it accounts for the biggest increase in land use, quadrupling between 1945 and 2007, increasing at about twice the rate of population growth over the period. Urban land use increased almost 2 percent from 2002 to 2007.
The report is significant because it shows with actual data that cropland acres declined at the same time ethanol production was increasing – which means no direct or indirect land use change as a result of corn being used for ethanol. Instead, Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president Bob Dinneen said what the report does show is how farmers are producing more on less land, while urban land uses increase.
“It is ironic that the land use debate has fixated on biofuels, when the actual culprit of land conversion has clearly been urban and suburban sprawl,” Dinneen said. “Subdivisions full of mini-mansions, big box stores, shopping malls, and parking lots are encroaching on productive farmland across the country.”
Geoff Cooper, who leads research at the Renewable Fuels Association, has a solid background as a communicator, which serves him, his organization, and the ethanol industry itself very well in the face of so many unwarranted attacks on RFA’s favorite liquid fuel.
In a new blog post, he spends a lot of time trying to understand, in as charitable way as possible, why the Natural Resources Defense Council is so stuck in first gear on the contrived issue of indirect land use change – and why it flip-flopped so hard and fast on ethanol.
One of the phenomena NRDC uses to justify its attack on corn ethanol as a cause of indirect land use change is that, due to increased ethanol production, U.S. corn exports constitute a smaller percentage of world corn exports today than in 1990. Cooper sees that as a good thing:
“Advances in technology and positive price signals are allowing farmers around the globe to profitably produce more grain on virtually the same acreage. It wasn’t so long ago that the U.S. corn industry was being accused of “flooding the world market” with cheap corn and putting economically disadvantaged farmers in other nations out of business.”
Recently, NCGA sponsored a global farmer roundtable in conjunction with the organization Truth About Trade and Technology. You can read blog posts about it here. There is great interest from farmers around the world to expand farm technology to boost yields overseas. After all, food elitists here want everyone to eat local. Why not help other countries do that also?
NRDC’s motives when it comes to ethanol, as much as they are grounded in indirect land use, are not science based. We’re still left wondering what lurks behind their insistence on this.
This guest blog comes compliments of Darin’s Ramblings and farmer Darin Grimm.
Please note this is a rant, I hope it doesn’t detract from the quality I want to bring to this blog, but it’s my thoughts this morning, so I’ll share.
I’m tired of seeing the constant bashing that corn gets in social media or even pop culture today. I grow corn, and I’d like to try to explain a bit why I do.
You see, each year, I make choices of what I wish to plant. The freedom is mine, as someone trying to make their living off the land, I tend to be interested in crops that might generate the income I need to raise my family. I could plant papayas, lilacs, or even green beans, but I don’t. Unfortunately, the Kansas weather is what it is, and there’s folks around the world that can raise those things much better/more affordably than I can. We can raise corn here though, because we can (at least most years).
I hear how subsidized corn is.. I wish folks could understand, looking back on the last three years of financials on our farm, we have received some subsidies, I would love to debate that issue some day, like most centrally planned government programs, the farm bill that delivers those subsidies leaves a lot to be desired, but that’s not the point of this post.. The point is, I could have grown pretty much whatever crops I wanted the last few years, and my subsidy check from the government would have been EXACTLY the same. My farm received no subsidies for planting corn instead of another crop.
I hear all the time from the environmental crowd how destructive corn is there. Well, probably THE most important environmental resource on our farm is the soil. I’d invite anyone to come visit, esp. after a heavy rain, bring your mud boats, we can walk some fields and I can show you the tremendous soil conservation benefits of corn residue vs. other crops. Not only does it keep the soil from washing/blowing, but the massive residue provides the building blocks for improving organic matter, a key component of soil health.
Having said all that, let me say this. I’d love to find another crop to grow. Preferably one that let us spread the workload out a bit, gave us more to do say in the summer, and help alleviate the stress of trying to do everything in the spring/fall. I actually hoped wheat could fill that role, unfortunately there’s less and less wheat being planted in northeast Kansas. If you think that’s because somehow that “massive corn lobby” has swindled a bunch of Kansas farm folk into planting a crop we don’t want to… Uugg, thanks for having so much confidence in us, but please read this post again.
For those that have the perfect “system” of how to change all this, so I can grow papayas, lilacs, green beans, or whatever your wonder crop is, lets have that discussion.. here in the comments, Twitter, Google Buzz, wherever you prefer. But I’ll tell you my bias going in.. Markets bring excesses, they swing too far at times, but I’m pretty confident this thing called the market does a pretty good job of telling me if and when I should be growing corn.
California is attacking corn ethanol again. The newest affront is complements of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) who has created a new working group to study soil sustainability provisions of biofuels. The current crops under review include corn ethanol, sugarcane ethanol, wood based fuels, palm oil, and soy biodiesel. The ultimate goal is that biofuels’ greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions will be measured by both indirect land use and also soil sustainability to be given a final GHG reduction number.
So what factors are considered to impact soil sustainability?
Carbon content
erosion
crop rotation
nutrition/chemical use
productivity
crop expansion
I believe that several recent events have led to these new proposed biofuels provisions, the biggest one being the ongoing attack of environmental organizations, such as Friends of the Earth, who are opposed to all things corn ethanol and commodity farming. What I find interesting is that many environmental groups seem to oppose everything – fossil fuel use, alternative energy and production farming. It’s almost like they oppose all things energy.
Similar to the same path CARB has traveled regarding indirect land use, a theory light on scientific support, this new path is also one with little to no scientific support in terms of how to “categorize” biofuels based on soil sustainability. You simply cannot create effective policy this way.
The other issue I take with these types of provisions within California policy making, is that they don’t include any provisions for gasoline. What are the indirect land use effects of oil production? No one asked until University of Nebraska finally studied them and found that they are even greater than originally estimated.
What are the ‘soil sustainability’ or should we say, ‘environmental impacts’ of oil production? Drilling impacts soil. Spills impact soil.
Until more people become educated about the benefits of corn ethanol, we continue to have a fight on our hands, one that the agricultural industry is taking very seriously. I encourage people to reach out to organizations like CARB and enlighten them regarding the errors of their ways through the sharing of facts.
No matter how hard the anti-ethanol factions continue to fight, we still have one truth on our side: corn ethanol is a more environmentally friendly fuel at its worst, than gasoline is at its best.
A recent study attempted to make the case that if the U.S. government allowed the ethanol tax credit to expire it would have very few adverse consequences for the U.S. industry. The fact the study was funded by the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry was dutifully avoided.
Anti-ethanol folks, who have been receiving a lot of attention on this blog of late, made sure the study got plenty of media splash because it helped them further their own causes. Interesting they didn’t showcase the source of the funding for the study or point out how badly Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry lusts after access to the world’s largest ethanol market…the USA.
And in today’s budget conscious environment in Washington, DC their efforts are getting some traction. The direct cost of the ethanol incentives is being reviewed independently without any comparative assessment to savings in farm bill costs, how much we spend militarily on protecting our petroleum shipping lanes, or the economic fallout from depending on foreign oil. Federal tax revenue generated by the production and use of U.S. ethanol totaled more than $8 billion in 2009, $3 billion more than the value of the tax credit.
It is amazing how quickly some of our elected officials have forgotten the core rationale for putting the US ethanol tax credit in place. President Ronald Reagan, who was not exactly a political Dove, regularly noted it is in America’s best interest to reduce the world’s dependency on oil from unstable regions of the world.
That’s why Reagan and virtually every president since has asked domestic alternative energy producers like ethanol to step up. He also noted the expense related to America’s foreign oil addiction and how helpful bringing these energy jobs and the billions of dollars ($1 billion day) we send overseas could be for the U.S. economy.
Despite this clarion call the aforementioned detractors, which mysteriously enough include some environmental groups, like to preach the benefits of sugarcane ethanol; sometimes called “slash-and burn ethanol.”(See attached photo). It’s even more amazing some U.S. regulatory agencies actually tout Brazilian ethanol as an “advanced biofuel over the American made corn product. In case you were wondering the photo shows a burning cane field in Brazil. The Sao Paulo area alone burns 8,000 sq miles of field producing incredible amounts of volatile compounds and particulates.
To make harvesting easier, which reduces manual labor costs, sugarcane fields are burned prior to harvest to remove the plants’ leaves. Considering the near slave labor conditions in some cane fields I guess this burning might seem a gift for the machete wielding masses, despite the obvious environmental costs of the massive burning.
If critics are truly concerned about our fuel needs and specific environmental and economic consequences consider the following:
Data from the Brazilian sugar organizations clearly shows they are planning, by 2020, to export 63% more sugar and export 336% more ethanol – all at the expense of increasing the land area required for sugarcane by 78%. Corn based ethanol is being provided with increased corn yields on the same acreage and using modern production processes throughout the production chain.
Sugarcane ethanol provides primarily ethanol, with some electircal cogeneration. Corn based ethanol provides ethanol, high protein feed for livestock, corn oil, and even captured CO2 from the fermentation process to carbonate soft drinks.
Sugarcane ethanol provides jobs that don’t meet subsistence level incomes, while jobs in the ethanol production chain are highly skilled jobs that provide long term employment and taxable income for local schools etc…
And the next time you want to get on a soapbox promoting sugarcane ethanol consider the following items below which are being ignored to make Brazilian product look better than it is:
Ignoring direct and indirect emissions from crop residues;
Use of inappropriately low fertilizer rates;
Failure to account for energy inputs for dehydration of hydrous ethanol;
Failure to accurately assess transport of ethanol from Brazil to U.S.
Failure to assess actual cane harvesting practices and processing in Brazil
At the end of the day if the U.S. ends up importing more ethanol, then we will once again lose a domestic growth industry, export American jobs, and become dependent on foreign energy producers.
Dear New York Times…Your editorial today regarding corn-based ethanol is superficial, either uninformed or malicious, and a disservice to the citizens of this nation looking for real energy solutions we can implement today.
Before addressing some of the onerous points in your piece, please take a look at the attached photo. This is not from the BP spill in the Gulf but rather the latest incident in Michigan which has dumped a million gallons of oil into a river and is now 80 miles from polluting Lake Michigan. Oil is and always has been a loaded gun from an environmental perspective. From leaking tanks at service stations to oil tankers grounded on coral reefs in storms. No more explanation needed on this one.
However, perhaps the biggest point you fail to address is wind, coal, and geothermal don’t make your car go. Natural gas can be used as an automotive fuel but it too is not renewable and has other issues I won’t go into here today. Solar….I’ll race you with my bicycle.
Will ethanol be made from other sources some day? Undoubtedly. Other biomass sources show real potential and will come with the proper research and development, but corn-based technology and infrastructure is the very launching platform for this effort. Yet opponents would have us build our domestic energy house without a foundation.
Ethanol…dubious environmental benefit? Line up the hundreds of studies regarding ethanol, look at the funding sources and consider what is left. What you will find is a long trail of reputable scientists and institutions public, private and governmental that clearly shows the environmental benefits of ethanol.
When compared to petroleum especially, ethanol is a rock star in regard to cleaning the air, maintaining water quality, and soil management. On the oil side think tar sands.
Your reference to the land use issue is also comical. Incredible productivity on our existing corn acres is easily supplying the growing ethanol industry while also meeting the needs of other markets. And yield growth is accelerating.
And finally, I think we must aggressively pursue all forms of renewable, domestic energy given the finite nature of petroleum and do so in good conscience because of the legacy we stand to leave future generations. To suggest we put our entire energy investment in “maybe someday” sources while ignoring a viable and tested source like ethanol is shortsighted at best.
The Land Use Conundrum . . . Corn, An Advanced Biofuel? That was the title of one of the sessions at the recent Corn Utilization and Technology Conference that was moderated by Jamey Cline, NCGA. One of his panelists was Adam Liska, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His remarks were on “Uncertainty in Indirect Land Use Change Emissions from Biofuels.” Adam has focused his work on the life cycle efficiency of producing ethanol.
Adam says that there has been increased agricultural production worldwide due to increased demand and it seems like attributing some of that to increased biofuels production makes sense. However, he says that quantifying the emissions related to agricultural production due to biofuels use is very uncertain because it’s done “as a projection into the future.” The bottom line is we don’t know what will happen in the future. He says “it’s nearly impossible.” He says that there are estimates for corn ethanol but they get smaller and smaller with more research and information. He says that they’ve started to do some research on the indirect effects of gasoline production and figure they’re roughly equivalent to that of ethanol. He also points to the impact of changes in livestock production as a result of higher grain prices and says it may have more impact than land use changes. Seems like there is a huge amount of variability in how you look at the future when it comes to biofuels production and especially corn ethanol.
You can download (mp3) and listen to my interview with Adam here:
CUTC has been expanded to include new topics that will be of value to many audiences, such as life cycle analysis of new technologies, land use issues, aquifers, water quality and usage and greenhouse gas emissions. “The CUTC is a very interesting conference in that it really looks at the technical issues around corn and corn milling,” says National Corn Growers Association Director of Biofuels & Business Development Jamey Cline, who is chairing the plenary session “Land Use Conundrum…Corn, an Advanced Biofuel?” which will focus on the role land use criteria played in the decision that corn does not currently meet the qualifications of an advanced biofuel. The session will include both presentations and a panel discussion and will also explore how the United States will meet its greenhouse gas reduction mandates given that corn is currently the only significant source of ethanol in today’s marketplace.
Listen to an interview with Jamey here talking about CUTC in general and this session in particular:
CUTC will be held at the Atlanta Hilton Hotel in downtown Atlanta, Ga. Registration information is available on-line.
Recently, a nation starved for domestic energy supplies and sources, has managed to lose its way in the deep dark forest of the unknown that is the speculative science of indirect land use change. In typical American fashion – or at least this seems to be the new norm – we have missed the point, evaded the crux of the issue and been distracted by ne’re-do-wells with questionable motives.
So in the name of refocusing the energy debate, I offer up the bold statement that ethanol fuel is a slam dunk when it comes to offering a real solution. First, it is here today, not on a drawing board or in a lab and it helps us achieve many of our critical goals such as providing jobs, making us less dependent on foreign oil from often hostile sources, and it pollutes less than gasoline during its manufacture and use. And as a bonus, with biofuels like ethanol we also get a product that is renewable. Anything that directs our focus away from these fundamental truths should be looked at with a skeptical eye.
There appears to be some evidence that rational thinking is not dead and more and more people are beginning to understand the fallacies and foibles of the concept of indirect land use. Historical trends indicate that increased U.S. ethanol demand has not been a significant driver of land use change. Increased crop productivity (growing more on the same amount of land) has primarily provided the growth in production necessary to meet heightened demand. But if history has shown us one thing it is that critics of ethanol will not go gently into that good night.
The next issue can already be seen on the horizon and it can be seen clearly because it is not a “new” criticism. It is called the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC). This is the incentive put in place to encourage gasoline marketers to blend 10% ethanol in a gallon of gasoline. It is the carrot that got the entrenched oil industry to rethink their century old product mix and make it better. (more…)
The new rule for the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS2, represents the first time the federal government has ever had to develop regulations based on the unproven theory of international indirect land use change. This is kind of like trying to make a recipe without knowing the ingredients.
EPA’s Transportation and Regional Programs Division Director Sarah Dunham talked about how they did that during a presentation at the National Ethanol Conference this week.
She said that having to incorporate indirect land use change into the rule “contributed to the evolution of the science in this year. There’s no question the science evolved significantly over the last year through this process and will continue to evolve going forward.” However, she added, “Just because we issued a final rule doesn’t mean that it’s done, it’s just the first step in moving forward with this.”
In other words, they’re not sure whether this first recipe they have put together will be a cake or a mistake. It still needs more testing in the kitchen because of what they call “inherent uncertainty.”
“There is inherent uncertainty in these assessments,” Dunham said. “And we thought it was important to try to formally recognize that uncertainty” and incorporate it into the analysis. The National Academy of Sciences has been asked to do a review of the whole lifecycle assessment and indirect land use change component and report back in two years.
I would call this inherent insanity. Why in the world would our federal government try to regulate something based on a half-baked theory and uncertain projections? It makes no sense at all. It would make much more sense to throw out the entire indirect land use change modeling effort until the science is fully evolved, not just partially.
According to the report, “Major Uses of Land in the United States 2007,” the amount of land in the United States devoted to growing crops declined by 34 million acres – or nearly 8 percent – between 2002 and 2007. At 408 million acres, total cropland was at its lowest level since records were started in 1945.
The Land Use Conundrum . . . Corn, An Advanced Biofuel? That was the title of one of the sessions at the recent Corn Utilization and Technology Conference that was moderated by Jamey Cline, NCGA. One of his panelists was Adam Liska, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His remarks were on “Uncertainty in Indirect Land Use Change Emissions from Biofuels.” Adam has focused his work on the life cycle efficiency of producing ethanol. 
The 
EPA’s Transportation and Regional Programs Division Director Sarah Dunham talked about how they did that during a presentation at the 