Regional Approaches to Sustainable Bioenergy: Program Design and Goals At the USDA - National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Region-based production systems are needed to produce the feedstocks that will be turned into biobased products, including biofuels required to meet Federal mandated targets. Thirty-six billion gallons of biofuels must be blended with U.S. transportation fuels by 2022. With more than 12 of the 15 billion gallons of corn grain ethanol presently being produced, careful planning for the expansion of a biomass sector must be done now because the land and financial resources required to produce the next 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels is significant – an estimated 24 million acres of dedicated feedstock crops and $160 billion to build the needed biorefineries. Increased USDA extramural support integrating: research, development, and demonstration; education/workforce development; and extension/outreach/technology transfer brings together robust industry, academic, and government partnerships through the NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Sustainable Bioenergy Challenge Coordinated Agricultural Projects (CAP) program and is coordinated with expanded Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Forest Service (FS) intramural research through the regional USDA Biomass Research Centers. . Six competitively awarded AFRI Regional Bioenergy CAPs and two AFRI Bioenergy Education CAPs form the nucleus for the near-term development of regional supply chains, building on USDA and Department of Energy (DOE) investments, such as the Biomass Research, and Development Initiative (BRDI), the Feedstock Genomics Program, the Regional Feedstock Partnerships and programs supporting biorefinery development and commercialization. Additional competitive research grant programs to fill critical knowledge gaps are also in place.