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Highlands Today

Biofuels Symposium Draws Good Crowd

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: March 6, 2009

SEBRING - More than 100 people filled the auditorium at the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center on Thursday for a six-hour symposium that featured seven scientific experts speaking on growing fuels for conversion into biofuels.

The audience learned that, in addition to the two ethanol plants planned to go into production in late 2010, a third biofuels operation may be coming to Highlands County.

John Alleyne, director of the Highlands County Extension office, which hosted the symposium, said an Atlanta businessman has expressed interest in growing the jatropa bean on more than 1,000 acres in this county and converting it into a biofuel.

While the man heading this proposed project is not ready to release details yet, Alleyne said he also has indicated interest in processing jatropa produced by other growers.

One of the people attending the symposium, Andrew Walmsley, assistant director of agriculture policy at the Florida Farm Bureau, said the big turnout showed great interest by local growers in biofuels.

"The technology might be a few years off for commercial scale (growing)," he said. "But now is the time to start figuring this out, what growers are going to have to do to be able to grow these types of energy crops."

Walmsley said many growers are likely to look into converting some of their lands into biofuel crops production to diversify and reduce their risk from price fluctuations for traditional food crops.

Biofuels plants are looking to sign growers to long-term contracts to supply energy crops like sweet sorghum, he said, and that could be a way for farmers to "stabilize uncertainties."

"It could be kind of a hedge," Walmsley explained. "You could be in your typical commodity markets for part of your operations, and you know you're going to get a set rate for your energy crops."

Walmsley predicted growers will look at switching to biofuels crops "as a way to diversify, to insulate themselves from the typical fluctuations of the market, of weather, pests and disease.

"It's another option, another tool in their tool box to be sustainable, to be productive, to be profitable."

There has been talk of Highlands County becoming "the biofuels capital of Florida," Alleyne said.

There is no guarantee that will happen, he said.

"But," Alleyne added, "there is great potential for Highlands becoming just that."

That the United States and the rest of the world must depend more on biofuels and less on oil for energy is a certainty, Alleyne said. The only question is how big biofuels will become in Highlands County, he said.

Petroleum is a limited resource and, according to many experts, either already has or will soon hit its maximum possible production worldwide and then drop, Alleyne said.

"There is no joke about this," Alleyne said. "If we are to survive and keep going as we have or even better, we must move into sustainable or renewable energy."

More use of biofuels will produce less pollution and the greenhouse gases that are fueling global warming, he said. And, just as importantly, he said, more biofuel is the only path to "energy security" for this country. Relying on imported oil is dangerous, he said.

"The people who sell us oil haven't been very friendly to the United States," Alleyne said. Many of the oil exporting countries have unstable governments, he added.

"They can hold us, in a wink, at ransom," he said.

The University of Florida will continue research on what crops can be best grown for biofuels in the state's various regions, said Sanjay Shukla, a professor at the university's Southwest Florida Research and Education Center.

Shukla said ranchers may be able to participate in biofuels crop production by retaining water on their land, treating it to reduce phosphorous, and then selling it for use on fields of biofuels crops.

Eight experiments in this type of water management are being conducted, he said.

John Alexander, of Frostproof, chairman of Alico Inc., a land management company overseeing citrus, sugar cane, vegetable and cattle operations in Highlands and four other counties, said information presented at the biofuels symposium was helpful.

The more options that agricultural producers have to maintain or increase profits, he said, the healthier the industry will be.

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or jkonkoly@highlanddstoday.com

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