Official: Future of BCAP could impact future of energy crops

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Kris Bevill
June 19, 2012

The nearly $10 million awarded by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency to three energy crop project areas on June 13 will be the only funding distributed through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program this year and it’s unclear whether the program will be reauthorized by Congress as part of the next Farm Bill or if legislators will allow it to expire on Sept. 30.
BCAP was created by Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill to assist farmers and land owners in establishing energy crops for bioenergy production and is the only federal program of its kind. If BCAP is not renewed, the risk and costs associated with establishing significant acres of energy crops will likely fall on the shoulders of bioenergy producers—the same producers who are already saddled with enormous amounts of risk and financial burdens associated with first-of-a-kind facilities.

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