Report Indicates Little Land Use Impact for Ethanol Production
The amount of agricultural land required to produce 15 billion gallons of grain ethanol in the United States by 2015, as required by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), is likely to be less than 1 percent of total world cropland, according to a new report released today by the Renewable Fuels Association.
According to the report, “Understanding Land Use Change and U.S. Ethanol Expansion,” gains in agricultural productivity, coupled with the contribution of feed produced as an ethanol co-product, are expected to significantly mitigate the need for conversion of non-agricultural lands to support expanded U.S. biofuels production.
Moreover, there is no empirical evidence demonstrating land conversion abroad is a result of U.S. biofuels production. “Unfortunately, the current state of land use change science is far from conclusive and no consensus exists on how best to analyze the potential indirect land use impacts of expanding biofuels production,” continued the report.
The report analyzes historical cropland and crop utilization trends, explores the complex and multifaceted nature of land use changes, and discusses the uncertainty of current land use change modeling approaches.
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Rob Mida
Funny that the RFA for NOT finding “empirical evidence” of US and EU agrofuels policies effecting land conversion in third world countries. This goes to help the RFA’s image along with Big-Ag business. Of course, right after this statement is made it is admitted that the science is “far from conclusive” on land use impacts.
The conclusion when looking at the facts doesn’t bode well for agrofuels. These initiatives are re-fueling colonialism in the globalized world. You need only to look to Africa, Bali, South America, etc and see how the people there have been affected by the industrialized nations.
If one were to actually and honestly look at what this is causing, you’d be disgusted. Of course, that would require honesty, integrity, and responsibility, yet we all know those qualities don’t help the bottom line when it comes to multi-national corporations, the real players in this emerging global power structure. The rest of us pawns are divided by design, struggling to survive in a system with artificial scarcity and usury/fiat money system structured purposefully so the interest combined with the principle can NEVER be paid.
If you recently lost your home, too bad for you, you should have been a banker!
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