Biofuel initiative yields beneficial side effects for VT farmers

The federal government is funding a new effort to make farming in Vermont more cost-effective, self-sufficient and environmentally benign. The highlighted purpose of the initiative may turn out, however, to be less significant than what's being described as a side benefit.

As a result of an earmark attached to legislation by Senator Patrick Leahy, the U.S. Department of Energy has provided $2.5 million over the past two years to spur on-the-farm research into the cultivation and processing of crops for biofuels. Those leading the effort say it's too soon to determine whether biofuel production will prove economically feasible in Vermont. But farmers who are growing oilseeds such as sunflowers and soybeans as part of the project suggest that the crops themselves could prove more valuable than the nonpolluting diesel fuel that can be derived from them.

Livestock can be fed meal that becomes available as a byproduct of the biofuel production process. Preliminary results of a federally funded trial indicate that “cows are doing just as well on this as on commercial feed,” says Roger Rainville, an Alburgh farmer who's growing sunflowers and canola as potential fuel crops. “It looks very competitive” with feed that's grown and processed outside Vermont, Rainville adds.

John Williamson, a farmer in Bennington County, finds that grain from oilseeds can generate “pretty big savings.” Williamson, who sold his dairy herd a few years ago, has been growing such crops since 2003. His State Line Farm in Shaftsbury is cited by the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund as the site furthest advanced in biofuel production, but Williamson says his operation is still at a fledgling stage and will not scale up for another couple of years.

“It's more of a grain business than it is biofuel,” Williamson says in regard to the initiative unfolding on his farm. “It's clear that the grain has more value than the fuel,” he adds, estimating that biodiesel might eventually be produced at State Line for a cost of about $3 a gallon.

Vermont farmers buy more than 100,000 tons of livestock meal and 6 million gallons of diesel fuel per year from out-of-state sources, according to the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, a non-governmental group that is administering the biofuels project. Some of the money farmers now spend on those commodities would be saved if sizable quantities of oilseed crops were grown in Vermont, says Ellen Kahler, the fund's director.

It's not the intention of the project to incubate a commercial oilseed industry in the state, however. The crops seem to do fairly well in Vermont, but growing conditions here are much different than in the Midwest where oilseed has become the basis of an important agribusiness, notes Heather Darby, an agronomist with the University of Vermont Extension Service who is studying this type of cropping in the state. Producing biofuels is technologically “the easy part,” Darby says. Maximizing yields per acre of oilseed crops is the most challenging aspect of the endeavor, she observes.

Sound soil management is integral to the success of the crops in Vermont, Kahler says. Vermont farmers will thus be encouraged to grow oilseeds in rotation with other crops rather than following the mono-cropping model favored by biofuel suppliers in the Midwest, she notes.

“We're thinking local production for local use,” Kahler adds.

For example, five nearby farms are involved in Williamson's oilseed experiment in Shaftsbury. The meal byproduct is what's most attractive to the dairy farmers, but one vegetable grower is also taking part with the intention of powering his equipment with biofuels, Williamson says.

About 20 farms around Vermont are currently growing oilseeds, Darby calculates. And more might be enticed to try if Rainville proves persuasive during the demonstration day he's organizing at his Broadview Farm in Alburgh on August 6. “There's no doubt in my mind this can be effective,” he says of the overall oilseed initiative in Vermont. And he means to prove that to the 100 or so farmers who Rainville expects will attend the event.