Farmers Tout Alfalfa As Fuel

DTN--Alfalfa producers throughout the country are bucking the notion that hay is for horses and hoping the ethanol industry will see that hay can provide horsepower as well.

Alfalfa could be a leading feedstock to produce cellulosic ethanol, said Mark Wagoner, a Touchet alfalfa seed farmer who also serves as chairman of the National Alfalfa and Forage Alliance. In August, the alliance held a daylong summit in Washington, D.C., to promote the benefits of alfalfa as a biomass crop, or agricultural waste byproducts, to produce cellulosic ethanol.

"Alfalfa is the fourth-largest crop in the U.S.," said Wagoner, whose grandfather started farming in the Touchet area in 1918. Wagoner grows about 1,200 acres of alfalfa seed, most of which is exported to Argentina. But when he harvests his alfalfa seed each fall, tons of alfalfa is left on the field where it decomposes.

Because it has been treated with chemicals, it can't be used for feed. But that waste could be turned into ethanol, he said. "If we are going to meet the goal of producing 25 percent of the nation's energy supply from renewable sources by 2025, cellulosic ethanol production must be part of the equation," Wagoner said.

DTN Ethanol Center, Sept. 12, 2007