MONHEIM, Germany – U.S. corn and Canadian canola groups are going to considerable lengths to defuse the food versus fuel debate.
They have produced supply and demand projections that show expanded acreage and higher yielding varieties will provide more than enough corn and canola to go around.
Both associations assure consumers there is no downside to producing crops to fuel automobiles.
But one big player in the global agriculture arena feels there is reason to be concerned about the looming food shortage and doesn’t like the direction agriculture is going on the biofuel front.
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“I think this will get us into major trouble in the long run,” Bayer CropScience chair Friedrich Berschauer told journalists attending a two-day conference in Germany.
“This direct competition is really foolish. It is really foolish to use high grade food for the production of energy. This is not promising for the future.”
He offered an alternative model for how agriculture can meet the growing demand for energy crops while devoting the same amount of land to food crops that it has in the past.
Bayer is conducting research on a plant called jatropha, an inedible oil-bearing shrub that grows predominantly in arid regions.
The hardy, drought-resistant plant can be cultivated on marginal land in tropical and subtropical regions without taking arable land out of production.
“The seeds of the jatropha shrub consist of more than 30 percent oil and in our opinion are a highly promising raw material for biodiesel,” Berschauer said.
Fuel made from the jatropha nut has good ignition characteristics, is free of sulfur and does not require extensive engine modifications.
Bayer is collaborating with partners in the automotive and agricultural processing industries to commercialize jatropha-based fuel.
The seed company is conducting field trials in China and India to see if the crop can be grown economically under cultivation. There are early signs that it can because of cheap land costs and the ability to grow it without fertilizer.
Bayer is working on developing nonselective herbicides, soil insecticides and fungicides to control the pests and diseases that affect jatropha plants.
Berschauer cautioned that jatropha would be a small contributor to the biodiesel industry’s vegetable oil needs and won’t be commercialized for a few years. However, it’s a good example of how agriculture can slowly extract itself from the food versus fuel debate.
“I think this makes sense in the long run,” he said. “It absolutely makes sense.”
