Official: Future of BCAP Could Impact Future of Energy Crops

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) The nearly $10 million awarded by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency to three energy crop project areas on June 13 will be the only funding distributed through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program this year and it’s unclear whether the program will be reauthorized by Congress as part of the next Farm Bill or if legislators will allow it to expire on Sept. 30.

BCAP was created by Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill to assist farmers and land owners in establishing energy crops for bioenergy production and is the only federal program of its kind. If BCAP is not renewed, the risk and costs associated with establishing significant acres of energy crops will likely fall on the shoulders of bioenergy producers—the same producers who are already saddled with enormous amounts of risk and financial burdens associated with first-of-a-kind facilities.

... Todd Atkinson, FSA chief of staff, said "... But if that financial assistance doesn’t exist, then who has to take on the financing of the crop and working with 100 to 200 producers—teaching them to develop the best standards for the crop, making sure it’s done in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way, replacing the crop if it fails? That all probably falls on the end-use facility. And I think we’ve seen that the end-use facilities have a lot of financial risk as it is, simply getting their technology up and running and getting the capital investments taken care of. The crop part of it would have to be added to that equation.”

...Despite a significantly reduced budget, Atkinson said BCAP has hit its stride and is functioning in the manner it should for those projects that were able to be funded. Last year’s awards funded a variety of crops including switchgrass for Abengoa Bioenergy’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas and hybrid poplar for ZeaChem Inc.’s integrated biorefinery in Oregon. Of the nine approved projects, Atkinson said the most successful awardees have been those with previously established farmer/land owner relationships. “If you did not have those relationships with producers, you did not meet your acreage targets,” he said. “You need to have these relationships in order to be successful.” Atkinson attributes crop grower hesitation to the government’s “herky-jerky” funding for the program, adding that growers will be more likely to invest in risky energy crops if they are certain that the federal government will continue to support that industry. READ MORE