How to avert the coming agriculture crisis

This March, farmers from across the U.S. joined together for the 44th anniversary of National Agriculture Day, with many taking time away from their farms to visit lawmakers in Washington, D.C. It was a good reminder to policymakers that agriculture is America’s largest industry and the foundation of U.S. economic growth.  

Unfortunately, that foundation has seen better days.  

{mosads}According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2016 net farm income declined for the third straight year, reaching the lowest point since 2009, and further declines are forecast for 2017. This is the sharpest drop in farm income since the Great Depression. There are over 5 billion bushels of surplus corn, wheat and soybeans dragging down global prices, and crop production is set to significantly outpace worldwide demand for the foreseeable future.

America hasn’t experienced a full blown agricultural crisis since the 1980s, but that doesn’t mean bankruptcies must once again sweep across the nation, jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of jobs in thousands of rural communities and urban centers. The solution to this problem is to put our crop surplus to work reinvigorating economic growth while dramatically reducing our reliance on energy from nations like Iraq and Venezuela. Biofuels are the solution.

The company I founded, POET, began 30 years ago, at a time when corn prices had already dropped to more than 30 percent below the cost of production with no end in sight, helping revolutionize biofuels production and turning low-priced corn into higher-value energy and cost-effective protein. Thanks to biotechnology and improved farming techniques, rural America is now ready to compete against fossil fuels for a higher percentage of the fuel tank. Nationwide adoption of E15, a 15 percent biofuel blend of gasoline now offered in 29 states, would immediately provide an outlet for America’s agricultural surplus and deliver a much-needed jolt to rural economies.

U.S. farmers are growing more crops on less land than ever before. Agricultural production is more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and more sustainable than at any time in history. In fact, yields for corn are up nine fold since the 1930s on fewer acres of land. And production continues to break records. This fast-paced innovation has given us the ability to feed and fuel the world.

Farmers want to put this amazing productivity to use growing the economy, but the growth of U.S. biofuels is under threat. The RFS has worked for 11 years to ensure that oil companies can’t lock biofuels out of the market, but some oil interests want to undermine the policy and eliminate competition at U.S. gas stations.

Some seek to reopen the law by spreading the false narrative that 2022 marks the end of biofuel blending when in fact the law states the EPA must continue to set renewable fuel targets after that date. Others are pushing to change the Point of Obligation for complying with the RFS — moving it from oil refiners to fuel retailers — a move suggested by self-interested parties and thwarted by dozens of companies and major organizations.

The reason oil companies are attacking the RFS is simple. It works. America has cut oil imports in half since the law was passed in 2005, and consumers are increasingly protected from the manipulation of oil prices that has become standard operating procedure for Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Last year alone, U.S. biofuels displaced 510 million barrels of imported oil.  
And consumers are demanding higher volumes of biofuel because it costs less, boosts octane for better performance and displaces dirty, cancer-causing components in gasoline.

New USDA research demonstrates that conventional bioethanol emits 43 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline over its lifecycle. By 2022, that number will rise to 50 percent or more. And new biofuels, like the cellulosic ethanol POET produces at Project Liberty in Emmetsburg, Iowa can slash emissions by 90 percent.

These benefits are all a direct result of billions of dollars in investments by U.S. farmers and investors alike thanks to the RFS. Now is not the time to turn our backs on America’s most successful renewable energy and agriculture policy. We should harness our record-breaking agricultural output to finally end our nation’s need for oil imports and drive a new wave of economic prosperity across America.

Jeff Broin is the founder & CEO of POET in Sioux Falls, S.D., one of the world’s largest producers of ethanol and other biorefined products

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