U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer has just finished addressing the folks attending the latest Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bioeconomy Conference going on in St. Louis, Mo. Schafer reminded the crowd how hard the current administration has worked to promote the biofuels field in this country, and thus, how hard it had worked to help the farmers who are …
Transition to a Bioeconomy: Day Two
Back at it this morning at the Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Development Impacts Conference in St. Louis, Mo. Today is another big day, as we’re hearing from another variety of speakers who bring a lot of different viewpoints to the table. Later this morning, we’ll hear from the financial side of the issues facing Rural …
Managing Water for Future Ethanol Sustainability
The amount of water that goes into growing the corn that goes into ethanol has been a big topic of conversation between those for and against production of the green fuel. That’s why it is a topic of conversation at the Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Impacts Conference in St. Louis this week. This gathering of …
Many Voices, Many Opinions, One Goal
You don’t have to agree to come up with agreeable solutions… that seems to be the theme for the latest Farm Foundation Transition to a Bioeconomy Conference. This is the third in a series of these Farm Foundation-sponsored meetings designed to get a handle on the changing farm economy and what the expansion of biofuels, particularly ethanol and biodiesel, means …
Growing Jobs in a Growing Bioeconomy
How we develop rural jobs as the country moves to a bioeconomy was the latest subject tackled today at the Farm Foundation’s Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Impacts Conference in St. Louis. One of the key speakers during this session was USDA’s Under Secretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr, who talked about how we need to move forward …
Questions, Discussions Dominate Transition Conference
How do we meet carbon reduction goals? How do we reduce our carbon footprint with biodiesel and ethanol without actually creating more carbon from the production of those biofuels? What are the trade-offs and benefits we could see between securing our food supplies and our energy security? And how do we make all these things work while not damaging the …
Meeting the Environmental Challenges of Biofuels
A fascinating discussion this morning at the opening session of the Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Development Impacts conference here in St. Louis. Speakers have included government and university experts who are presenting what challenges face the bioeconomy, especially on the environmental side of the issue. Kitty Smith with the USDA’s Economic Research Service and chair of the …
Transition to a Bioeconomy About to Begin
The latest in a series of Farm Foundation-sponsored meetings on how to transition the country to a bioeconomy is about to get underway this morning in St. Louis, Mo. Transition to a Bio Economy: Environmental and Rural Development Impacts is taking place at the Hyatt Regency-Union Station today and tomorrow, and your intrepid blogger will be here to update you …
Transitioning to St. Louis
The latest in a series of conferences sponsored by the Farm Foundation on how this country can transition to a bioeconomy takes place this week in St. Louis, Mo. Transition to a Bioeconomy: Environmental and Rural Development Impacts brings together government officials… featuring USDA chief Ed Schafer…, bioenergy experts and leaders in the private industry to discuss environmental and rural …
Transition to a Bioeconomy: Part III
In just about a week and a half, government officials, bioenergy experts and leaders in the private industry will gather in St. Louis, Mo., for the third in a series of conferences sponsored by the Farm Foundation addressing the issues facing rural areas as they move to a bioeconomy. Michael Popp, professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Arkansas, …