Food or Bio-fuel

Food or Bio-fuel

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Here's a statement from Capt. Obvious. There is only so much arable land in the world so what do we do with it? Do we use it to grow biofuels to help with our energy needs or do we use it to grow food crops for a hungry world population. USDA plant physiologist Russ Gesch has thoughts. "The debate over using a food use crop to produce energy. other crops that are being developed and are not necessarily produced as high food use crops and camellia is certainly one of them, certainly here in the United States, are bing developed more for biofuels and nonfood uses so it is not competing for those same food use markets. You don't have that debate about using a food use crop to produce biofuels, so it is good from that standpoint. There is also the issue of land use. If you are growing on arable land for crops there is a finite amount of that land here in the US and other parts of the world as well. If you are rolling a biofuel crop on a particular piece of arable land, then that land is not available for growing a food crop. That's where this double cropping idea comes into play because we are producing a biofuel crop which is camelina and if it matures early enough, we can harvest it and follow it or intercede it with a food use crop like Soybeans.. So now we are not devoting the land producing just biofuel or just a food crop."
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