SUST 33 |
| Conventional wisdom has it that the scope and scale of biofuels will be severely limited because of conflicts with food production. The conventional wisdom is wrong. There is no “food vs. fuel” conflict, at least for the case of cellulosic ethanol or other fermentation biofuels. First of all, very large scale cellulosic ethanol production will be accompanied by correspondingly large increases in yields of energy crops, reducing pressure on land resources. Second, much energy crop production will occur on lands that are not prime agricultural acreage. Third, it is critical to realize that we do not in fact use land to “grow food”. Most of our agricultural acreage is devoted to providing calories and protein to our animal herds, in particular to ruminant animals. There are many opportunities to integrate ruminant animal feed production with fuel ethanol, to the benefit of both. The available evidence indicates that large scale biofuels will increase, not decrease, world food supplies. |
|
Sustainability of Food Systems: Carbohydrate Economy
8:20 AM-12:20 PM, Tuesday, March 27, 2007 McCormick Place South -- Room S106B, Level 1, Oral
Sustainability of Energy, Food, and Water |