Today and tomorrow I’ll be covering the Farm Foundation, Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade and Policy Issues. Biofuels is the main topic of discussion.

Wally Tyner is an energy economist with the Dept. of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. He’s one of the first speakers on the program. I was able to speak with him before things get started this afternoon here in Washington, DC.

Wally says Farm Foundation decided to host a series of conferences a couple years ago. There are to be five in all and this is the fourth one. You can find out information about them on the Farm Foundation website.

This conference will focus on biofuels from a global perspective with participation from the European Union and Brazil. We’ll hear some contrasting viewpoints since Wally says that the EU has taken a different approach to requiring biofuels than the US. In his presentation he’ll focus on cellulosic or second generation biofuels. The hope is that the conference will incite or promote discussion even though Farm Foundation itself doesn’t take positions. He says they believe they’ve accomplished the objective with the conferences so far.

The next one in the series will focus on extension and it’s role across the country in biofuels production. It will be held in Arkansas in June.

You can listen to my interview with Wally here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/farm-foundation/ff-global-09-tyner.mp3]

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).