Corn, Agricultural Vision: Future
Renewable Chemical Building Blocks
ST. LOUIS, Mo. The
National Corn Growers As
sociation (NCGA) has a story
to tell about checkoff-funded
research that has the poten
tial of increasing the price per
bushel of corn by a minimum
of 50 cents per year.
That research is funded
under the Agricultural
Vision, the Plant/Crop-Based
Renewable Resources Vision
2020 program at the U.S. De
partment of Energy (DOE).
“Picture this research as a
conversion of corn and other
renewable inputs to chemical
building blocks that would be
used to produce a wide range
of everyday consumer goods
such as plastics, paints,
carpet fibers, adhesives, anti
freeze, and personal care
products,” said Vic Miller, a
grower from Oelwein, lowa,
and a member of NCGA’s
Customer and Business De
velopment Action Team.
“The Agricultural Vision is
for plants, instead of petro-
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leum, to serve as the
feedstock for 10 percent of
the chemical building blocks
market by 2020 and 50 per
cent by 2050.”
Since 1997, the NCGA, in
cooperation with the DOE,
has championed the Renew
ables Resources 2020, a
broad-based coalition of agri
cultural, forestry, and chemi
cal industry experts working
to create plant-based, renew
able products that would re
place petroleum-based
products as fossil-fuel sup
plies dwindle.
“The program is focused
solely on funding projects
that will use plants instead of
petroleum for chemical
building blocks. While the
program does not fund
ethanol, a completely sepa
rate research and policy pro
gram of the NCGA, using
plants for industrial
feedstocks has the potential
in the future to be an ex
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for corn,” said Miller.
Gaining 10 percent of the
market, he notes, would rep
resent a five-fold increase
from today’s tiny market
share of the chemical build
ing blocks in the Agricultural
Vision, he said.
In recent testimony to the
House Subcommittee on In
terior Committee on Appro
priations, Miller pushed for a
minimum of $l3 million in
funding for the Agricultural
Vision. “If plants were the
feedstock for 10 percent of
this market, farm income
would increase by more than
$5 billion (or 50 cents per
bushel) per year, greenhouse
gas emissions would be re
duced, recycling opportuni
ties would be increased and,
most importantly, our de
pendence on foreign oil
would decrease.”
Miller noted that recent ex
periences illustrate how the
power of unstable oil export
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Corn Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 14, 2000—Page
fAILI SHEWS
PENNSYLVANIA MASTER CORN GROWERS ASSOC., INC.
affect the price of gasoline,
heating oil, and many con
sumer goods such as plastic
because of the U.S. increasing
reliance on imported oil.
“The U.S. currently im
ports more than 50 percent of
domestic petroleum con
sumption. By 2020, net im
ports will grow more than 65
percent,” he said. “While we
have a finite supply of fossil
fuels, we have abundant
plant/crop based resources
that are renewable over short
periods of time. The most sig
nificant opportunity to help
offset the need for imported
oil is the use of alternative
feedstocks that can be de
rived from renewable plants
and crops.”
He emphasized that re
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erican-grown crops can
provide many of the same
basic chemical building
blocks as petrochemicals, and
can provide others that petro
chemicals cannot.
“To achieve the bold
vision, we must begin laying
the research foundation
today,” Miller said. “If we
are to realize, fully, the po
tential for biobased resources
as a supplement to fossil
fuels, we need new routes for
more efficient processing and
utilization as well as a whole
range of plant-derived build
ing blocks. Now is the time
for significant research and
development on what renew
able and novel processes
might be available, and for
beginning to develop selec
tion criteria among the possi
ble alternatives.”
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