A sector rocked by Mother Nature looks for a bio-based silver lining.
By Alexei Smirnov
No one, not even Al Gore, could predict the curve ball thrown by Mother Nature at Tennessee farmers
last year. In April, a frost wiped out most of the wheat crop in the state. What remained was nearly
annihilated by the severe summer drought. Most affected were the nursery, fruit, cotton and soybean
crops, with farmers losing more than half of what they planted. "People have called it freeze-dried
farming," says Joe DiPietro, UT-Knoxville's vice president of agriculture. "Conditions couldn't be
much tougher than last year."
For most of 2007, all it took was a glance at the Tennessee map on the Department of Agriculture's
Web site to realize how tough the farmers had it. All 95 counties were declared disaster areas, most
of them marked in red through October due to extreme heat and the lack of rain. The Tennessee Farm
Bureau estimates that 80,000 of the state's 90,000 farmers took a hit from the weather. Because of
that, many farmers started off 2008 in a financial pinch, the consequences of which could extend
beyond 2008, says Tim Cross of the UT Institute of Agriculture. Nationwide, farming has become a
riskier venture due to rising production costs, which are tied to increasing fuel costs, as well as
the tightening of financing for next year's crops. Climatologists had plenty of weird weather at
their disposal in 2007 to hone their craft, but alas—2008 predictions offer little assurance
as they run the gamut between "wetter than normal and drier than normal," Cross says.
On the bright side, UT scientists say they have sufficient funding to figure out how to use 1.5
million acres of under-utilized Tennessee farmland in the name of securing America's fuel supplies.
Having won the $135 million grant from the Department of Energy and $62 million from the state to
research mass production of cellulosic ethanol, UT's executive vice president, David Milhorn, says
the school, in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is on track to start building its
first biorefinery in the spring. "The science is coming along really well," Milhorn says. "This time
last year, we didn't have any money. Now we're engaging the farmers, getting contracts from them to
grow the biofuels feedstock—switchgrass." To run the first demonstration of cellulosic ethanol
production, UT needs 8,000 acres of farmland, while commercial production requires hundreds of
thousands of acres. "[Switchgrass] is economically very advantageous to the farmer. They just have
to harvest it once or twice a year," Milhorn adds. "We're trying to create a whole new industry in
the state that doesn't displace other crops. We're talking about growing it on the land that's
unused right now."
Agriculture in 3-D
When it comes to 2008 concerns, Rhedona Rose, director of public affairs of the Tennessee Farm
Bureau, sums it up in four words: ditches, driver's licenses and drought.
Attempts by Tennessee developers and farmers to relax rules regulating streams that run dry for
a part of the year wound up in a state legislature's study committee late last year. "We're very
interested in how far the regulatory reach of waters goes in the state," Rose says. The proposals
faced opposition from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. While land- owners
are asking for clearer standards defining what they can and can not do with ditches running through
their properties, environmentalists caution that the standards set in the proposed ditch bill are
too broad and may be used to harm the environment along those waterways.
Also of concern to farmers are the state's rules on issuing driver's licenses. Farmers
widely rely on the government's H-2A certification program to bring temporary immigrant workers to
help harvest crops. Under H-2A, guest workers are allowed to stay in the United States not longer
than one year, which prohibits them from obtaining driver's licenses in Tennessee (the licenses are
issued to persons with a one-year-minimum stay). Rose says that the Farm Bureau has been working
with the Department of Safety "to make sure the farmers have legal workers who can drive from the
field to the barn with a license."
Despite the severe drought in 2007, Rose does not anticipate Tennessee farmers seeking
additional disaster relief funds in 2008. "Most of them are appreciative of the $21 million in the
2007-08 budget for the agricultural enhancement program, which allows them to get cost-share dollars
for implementing new innovative practices," she says. This provision incentivizes farmers to erect
storage barns for hay and grains, which improves hay quality and buys time so they don't have to
dump their grain on the market immediately upon harvesting. The agricultural enhancement provision
will remain in the 2009 budget unless lawmakers decide to take it out, says Rose. Here's to hoping
that farmers can demonstrate positive ROI with their new storage barns.
No one, not even Al Gore, could predict the curve ball thrown by Mother Nature at Tennessee farmers
last year. In April, a frost wiped out most of the wheat crop in the state. What remained was nearly
annihilated by the severe summer drought. Most affected were the nursery, fruit, cotton and soybean
crops, with farmers losing more than half of what they planted. "People have called it freeze-dried
farming," says Joe DiPietro, UT-Knoxville's vice president of agriculture. "Conditions couldn't be
much tougher than last year."