A research team at the University of Missouri has been awarded a multi-million grant to study ways of obtaining alternative biofuels without further impacting food supply.
The $5.4 million (€4.4 million) grant was awarded by the US Department of Energy and will be used to further study non-food biofuel crops, like switchgrass.
"In the 10 states along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, around 100 million acres of marginalized agricultural land is unused or underutilized often due to frequent flooding,' says professor in the School of Natural Resources and director of the MU Center for Agroforestry, Shibu Jose.
'If farmers can plant just 10% of marginal floodplain land with crops designated for use in biofuels, we can produce 6 to 8 billion gallons of liquid fuel annually. Planting this land with crops designated for biofuels would have little to no effect on the food supply.'
The announcement comes after one of the worst droughts experienced in the US this summer, which has reignited the fuel-vs-food debate as corn crop bushels fell by 13% to 10.8 billion in July.
