Big MACC Attack

Ethanolics Anonymous

If you are a grain farmer in the US, it's hard not to like the push for Ethanol as an alternative fuel. After all it has been a tough few years with thin to negative margins, and constant talk about doing away with the subsidies that function as profits in the Humpty-Dumpty economics of conventional agriculture. Now the price of corn is skyrocketing, and farmers' wallets fattening. Of course if you are a livestock farmer (or feedlot owner) you don't like the corn ethanol push because it raises ther cost of your main production input. But that is only part of the picture.

Myself, I think the price of grain ought to be higher (and subsidies lower) to remove some of the distortions from the market, and to remove the ad-hoc subsidy of non-farm (by that I mean CAFO) meat production. But I don't think straining our food producing acreage even further to grow more corn so we can continue to drive too inefficient vehicles too frequently, for too little reason is the way to do it. If we must make ethanol, let's do it right, with more appropriate, cellulosic crops.

An editorial in today's New York Times, "Honesty About Ethanol," [link] reminds those who might have forgotten that production economics is only one part of the food and fuel production puzzle. Climate change triggered by greenhouse gass emissions -- especially after the recent election -- is going to have to be a part of the analysis. Superficial analysis in support the 2007 Energy Bill looked at ethanol as essentially carbon neutral in that carbon released when burned was matched by the carbon sequestered when it was growing. This, of course, ignored conversion efficiency or the energy balance of ethanol production (itself a matter of persistent debate), but even more troubling are the indirect effects of altering the market economics for corn by stimulating a huge new demand.

Domestically, it means that farmers are taking land out of conservation programs and putting it into corn production. That land was functioning as a carbon sink (as well as wildlife habitat), and when it is plowed up much of that carbon is released. Internationally, it means that Third World Farmers, clear more land (think climate critical rainforest) to make up for the loss of now too expensive imported corn. Fact is there are plenty of waste materials -- called so because they currently go to waste, I guess! -- and some perennial grasses that offer a much better alternative than re-directiing food crops to fuel production. (We deal with this carbon / fuel / food question in more detail in our blog Sinks or Swim.)

Food and fuel; we've been binging too long. What we need is a 12 Step Program for our energy addiction; corn ethanol is just the hair of the dog.

Grass, Gas and Glomalin

I received an interesting article this morning from the USDA about some new research into glomalin, a sugar-protein produced by beneficial soil fungi. Here a few interesting tidbits I picked up.

1. Soils with native grasses had higher levels of glomalin than those planted with non-native grasses. This makes perfect sense since glomalin is produced by beneficial soil fungi (known as arbuscular mycorrhizae) that have a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. (Fact is more than 80% of the plant species benefit from symbiotic interaction with soil microbial life.)
2. Soils with high glomalin content are richer (in terms of plant nutrition) and less erosion prone than soils with lower glomalin content. This is because the glomalin helps soil particles stick together, forming aggregates that are more stabile in the presence of wind and water pressure.
3. But there is also a carbon sequestration effect that is significant. Plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (just as mammals like us remove oxygen) to fuel photosynthesis. Some of the results of this process -- on which all higher life on Earth is dependent -- end up in the plant roots, where the root fungi process some of the resulting organic compounds into glomalin.

General estimates have about 1,500 gigatons (yes, that is billion of tons) of carbon is stored in the soil. If the efficiency of that storage process could be improved by even 10%, that is another 150 billion gigatons removed from the atmosphere, which would have a more profound effect on the greenhouse gas content than just about any other action. Not all of it will remain in the soil of course -- especially in the case of switchgrass, on which the article focuses, because it would be converted into ethanol and then burned to feed our passion for the (formerly) open highway -- but still, it would be a help.

That is why restoring wetlands, prairies and savannahs -- as well as degraded forests -- especially in the tropic latitudes, where growth is fastest -- is so important. And restoring our farming methods as well. the researchers also found that glomalin levels were a good indicator of how "soil friendly" farming practices on the studied land were. Decades of research at the Rodale Institute have shown that organic farming stores far more carbon in the soil than conventional farming and thus helps fight globa warming.

To read the whole report, see the online version of the July Issue of Agricultural Research.