Recently in Biofuel Category
It is
interesting to see how the current financial crisis is changing the way that we
think about the world. This point was driven home for me when I had the
opportunity to attend a symposium last week in Berkeley, CA entitled "Causes
and Consequences of the Food Price Crisis" (click here for details). Sponsored by
the Giannini Foundation, the symposium featured faculty from the agricultural
and resource economics departments at the University of California, Berkeley
and the University of California, Davis.
Continue reading Coordination and Co-operation in International Agricultural Markets.
The Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association (SSCA) is launching its on-line journal at this year's Western Canadian Farm Progress Show (website). KIS introduced the journal in the May 22nd blog entry. This week we post the last of our previews - article summaries - from the upcoming journal. If you have not already done so, please read the May 22nd entry Juanita Polegi, SSCA Project Manager, to learn more about the Ag Tech Journal.
Continue reading SSCA Online Journal Preview.
Agriculture
has been making headlines over the last few weeks and months, as higher food
prices and soaring fertilizer stock prices have focused the country and the
world's attention on the production of food. The issues are important - rapidly
rising commodity prices, for instance, are making it extremely difficult for
the world's poor and very poor to get enough to eat. While attention has to be
paid to these global issues, attention also needs to be paid to what are
clearly domestic issues - issues that not only threaten the competitiveness of
the Canadian agricultural sector but also affect our ability to be a reliable
and secure food supplier.
Continue reading Just Fiddlin...?.
In a
recent Illative Blog posting,
Richard Gray asked the question "Is this current price peak in grain prices
just another blip in the commodity cycle or has something changed?" He then
goes on to argue that the high prices might last longer than has usually been
the case because of three factors: (1) growing economies in China and India;
(2) Hubbert's Peak; and (3) U.S. biofuel policy. The purpose of this posting is
to look at what might be in store for agriculture if the current situation of
high grain demand and low stocks prevails for some period of time.
Continue reading Volatility, Uncertainty and....
In our earlier blog entry we
suggested that there are two directions for the burgeoning biofuel industry to
take (see Whither Biofuels, December 13, 2007). These two directions are not mutually exclusive - given the right
circumstances, either or both of these directions could be taken. One direction
involves the creation of liquid fuels from various forms of plant material - specifically, products such as ethanol or biodiesel that can be used to power
vehicles. The other direction involves the production of solid fuels that can
be used as an energy source to compete with the likes of coal. In this entry,
we focus on the Canadian Prairies and consider what these two paths mean for
land use and biofuels policy in this region.
Continue reading From Bread Basket to...Fuel Tank?.
