the future of agriculture: competing demands of food, biofuels, and environment

I've avoided the whole "food vs. fuel" can of worms for awhile, even though it deserves some discussion, partly because it is more complicated than it sounds, and also because I've never been entirely convinced it truly is a valid impediment for viable production of biofuels in this country. Finally, I came across a compelling study by Dale et al. on Biofuels Done Right (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es101864b) that points out a few key issues in the food vs. fuel debate.

Strikingly, they point out that 80% of our cropland in the U.S. (that's 114 million hectares out of a total of 178 million ha) is used for production of animal feed, mostly cattle. I know, I know, the vegetarians (which I used to be) have been pointing this out forever. I knew that land efficiency for feeding cattle was extremely low compared to land efficiency to grow crops for human consumption, but I still find the 80% value shocking. So in truth, this is not a "feed starving families vs. fuel" debate, it is more of a "eating steaks and hamburgers vs. clean energy" debate. According to the USDA, the average annual consumption of beef was 61.1 lbs per person, in 2009. So in a sense, this debate revolves around our priorities.

In this study on Biofuels Done Right, the authors modeled different uses of ONLY the 80% of land being used for feeding animals, leaving the actual "human food" producing land intact. On the left-hand side of the diagram below, the current agricultural practices are outlined (again only using the 80% of cropland devoted to producing animal feed).


On the right side is a different model of land use that incorporates A LOT more cellulosic crops (such as switchgrass or Miscanthus) and the resulting output shows a much more diverse and efficient use of the land, with greater ethanol production and reduction in greenhouse gases (CO2 output means reduction of CO2).

The bottom line is that without even touching the current domestic food production or exports, we could produce up to 400 billion liters of ethanol (106 billion gallons/yr, the energy equivalent to 80% of gasoline derived from imported petroleum) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 670 Tg CO2 equivalent per year (~10% reduction in what we currently produce). All of this can be done while increasing soil fertility and not even reducing the amount livestock feed we are currently producing by using land-efficient animal feed technologies (APEX & LPC), as well as double-cropping.

So people, we CAN change our priorities here, by promoting more efficient use of our land...and it wouldn't hurt to cut your beef consumption either.