U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer will be the keynote speaker at the Oct. 15-16 conference, Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Development Impacts. Secretary Schafer will address public policy challenges for the bioeconomy. Also featured on the program will be Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr.

The conference is is a collaboration of Farm Foundation, and USDA’s Office of Energy Policy and New Uses, Rural Development, Economic Research Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.

“Building a biofuels industry puts demands on natural, human and community resources, while at the same time generating potential returns for investors, workers and communities where the industry operates,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin. “This conference is designed to build understanding of the short-and long-term impacts of those demands and potential returns, identify issues that must be addressed and options for the future.”

The “Transition to a Bioeconomy” conference series is designed to inventory current knowledge of key issues of the bioeconomy, identify options for the future, and determine information and research needs. The conferences provide government, industry, academic and community leaders with objective information and analysis on key issues of the evolving bioeconomy.

More information about the conference can be found here on the Farm Foundation website.