Corn Growers Praise Ag Vision Protection

April 13, 2001

Although the energy department's budget calls for a 36% reduction in the "Industries of the Future" category, Secretary Spence Abraham is getting praise from corn growers to protecting the "Ag Vision 2020" program from reductions.

The Ag Vision program focuses on helping agriculture, forestry and chemical industries increase the use of crops instead of petroleum as feedstocks to produce consumer goods including plastics, paint and adhesives. The program's goal is for plants to become the source of 10% of chemical feedstocks by 2020.

"Every product we produce from plants increases the amount of petroleum that is available for other uses and benefits the environment with renewables," said National Corn Growers Association President Lee Klein, a farmer from Battle Creek, NE. "Long-term we can increase farm income by several billion dollars if we use plants instead of petroleum for 10 percent of the industrial market."

In addition to protecting the Ag Vision program, Abraham included $5 million in the budget for an integrated bioproducts-bioenergy program. This will support research and development projects to use plants instead of petroleum for chemical feedstocks, bio-based fuels such as ethanol, and other bio-based sources of energy. "The NCGA has been a leader in the effort to focus research on renewables as a source of industrial feedstocks. The Ag Vision and Bioproducts/Bioenergy programs will decrease oil imports, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase recycling opportunities and create new industries here in the United States," Klein explained.