About Biofuel Farming

Biofuel Farming

• Biofuel farming is simply the farming of products that can be converted into biofuels -- fuels created from biomass that can serve as replacements for gasoline and diesel. The two most common types of biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel. They have existed as long as the automobile, but gasoline and diesel have been largely preferred over ethanol and biodiesel. In fact, Henry Ford expected his first Model T design to run on ethanol. Rudolf Diesel also optimized his first engine to use peanut oil.

Ethanol Farming

• Ethanol is created from the sugars and starches of certain grains grown by biofuel farmers and food processing wastes. In 2005, 1.4 billion bushels of corn, valued at $2.9 billion, created 4 billion gallons of ethanol. Each bushel of corn can be converted into 2.7 gallons of ethanol. When compared to corn, sugar beets may yield more ethanol per acre. Per acre, corn yields just 439 gallons of ethanol as of 2012. In the same year, one acre of sugar beets yielded 552 gallons.

Biodiesel Farming

• In general, the biodiesel farming industry, which primarily uses soybeans and canola, is smaller than the ethanol farming industry. Still, the United States produced 1.1 billion gallons of biodiesel in 2011, compared to 0.5 billion gallons in 1999, from biofuel farmers̵7; feedstock. This dramatic increase has led to increased demand for soybeans and other biodiesel-capable crops. Biodiesel yields per acre are significantly less than ethanol yields per acre. As of 2012, one acre of soybeans and one acre of canola yield just 63 gallons and 77 gallons of biodiesel, respectively. Moving forward, soybeans will likely be the preferred source of biodiesel. Soybean biodiesel is substantially cheaper than canola biodiesel.

Ethanol and Biodiesel Farming Outlook

• Biofuel farming is expected to increase between 2010 and 2020. Globally, in 2010, it created over 80,000 million liters of ethanol and over 40,000 million liters of biodiesel. Worldwide biofuel farming is expected to create over 160,000 million liters of ethanol and over 50,000 million liters of biodiesel in 2020. Global demand for ethanol and biodiesel will be over 180,000 million liters and over 60,000 million liters in 2020, respectively. With supply not expected to meet demand, the outlook for biofuel farming is certainly favorable.

Challenges

• There are still many challenges that biofuels will pose moving forward. For one, corn ethanol production is expected to increase food prices overall. Already, corn prices have surpassed $5 a bushel, on average, and the prices of other grains have followed suit. In 2006, a bushel of corn cost just $2. Increased corn prices have, in turn, caused higher prices in livestock used for meat. Biodiesel has other challenges to face in the future. High demand for biodiesel has caused large-scale deforestation in Southeast Asia, something that will likely continue as long as demand as high. Deforestation in this region has released high amounts of carbon dioxide. At the same time, proponents point to biofuels' lower carbon dioxide emissions as a benefit.