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CARD: Center for Agricultural and Rural Development

Biorenewables Policy

The Biorenewables Policy Division in CARD addresses questions surrounding expansion of biorenewables in the United States. The division, created in 2006, aims to build upon the center's strength in economic modeling and collaborative analysis. Initial research will focus on the outlook for biofuels and crops used for biofuels production, including the effect of biofuels growth on the level and volatility of crop prices.

Research will also explore the impact of biofuels growth on the mix and location of livestock, effects of possible policy changes on biofuels production and prices, impacts of increased biofuels production on water quality, and impacts on local basis for corn and soybeans.

Highlights

The Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research and Information Center (MATRIC) at Iowa State University has published a book on using distillers grains, a co-product of biofuels production, as a feedstuff for livestock and poultry. The book is only available online at http://www.matric.iastate.edu/DGbook and is free for downloading.

Recent Papers

Modeling the Effects of Pasture Expansion and Yield Increase on Emissions from Land-Use Change
Jerome Dumortier, Dermot J. Hayes, Miguel Carriquiry, Fengxia Dong, Xiaodong Du, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto F. Fabiosa, Kranti Mulik
February 2010 [10-WP 504]

Exploration of Certain Aspects of CARB's Approach to Modeling Indirect Land Use from Expanded Biodiesel Production, An
Bruce A. Babcock, Miguel Carriquiry
February 2010 [10-SR 105]

Recent Presentations

December 2009
Statement at the hearing on costs and benefits of domestic offsets (pdf) 0.05 MB
Dermot J. Hayes
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research, Washington, D.C.
May 2009
Statement at the hearing on indirect land use and renewable biomass provisions of the Renewable Fuels Standard (pdf) 0.28 MB
Bruce A. Babcock
Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Washington, D.C.