U biofuels study has farmers upset

Two soybean growers' groups decided to suspend grants to the U to protest research that found growing biofuels could actually worsen global warming.

By TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune

Last update: February 25, 2008 - 9:24 PM

A pair of agriculture groups has temporarily suspended about $1.5 million in grants to the University of Minnesota to protest a controversial study by U scientists earlier this month about biofuels and global warming.

The Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council decided to stop paying additional research money until they meet with Allen Levine, dean of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, and other officials.

"The university hurt the farmers' feelings, OK? That's probably the best way to say it," said Jim Palmer, executive director of the two groups.

University officials said the meeting will occur soon, and that they have a long history of positive relationships with soybean farmers.

"The funding is still in place and we will work this out," said Bev Durgan, dean of University Extension and director of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station.

The study, by University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman and others, said that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn, soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically change the landscape and worsen global warming. Farmers in the U.S., Brazil, Indonesia and other countries will need to clear forests, grasslands and peat lands on a massive scale to grow more of those crops, according to the research, unleashing far more carbon dioxide from natural vegetation than is saved by the lower emissions of the biofuels.

Ethanol industry officials criticized the study as a simplistic analysis that doesn't include the economic benefits for those who grow biofuel crops or the environmental cost of continuing to rely on petroleum.

"The study was over the top by implying that biofuels were bad," Palmer said. "Farmers were extremely surprised that it came out, why it came out, and that it came from the University of Minnesota."

The Soybean Research and Promotion Council provides the U with $1.5 million to $2 million each year for soybean research, said Palmer, and has never threatened to halt funding in the past. Its members want assurances that all future studies will be based on sound research.

The Tilman study was reviewed by independent scientists, a standard procedure, before being published in the journal Science. The report is not "anti-ethanol," said Tilman in an interview when it was published. It recommends that biofuels be produced in the future from crop waste products such as corn stalks or from perennials such as switchgrass and native prairie plants.

Durgan said she understands that farmers were disappointed in the study and that they take great pride in producing biofuels, but said that the university will not get in the way of academic freedom. "I firmly believe that our researchers have a right to research and publish that research and that we will never say otherwise," she said. There are more than 75 other biofuel studies underway at the university, Durgan said, and they sometimes reach surprising conclusions.

"This is not about telling a researcher what they can or cannot do," Durgan said. "This is talking about all the issues around renewable energy, around environment, what they are now and what they're going to be. This is all about having that academic conversation."

Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388

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