By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Research published by Michigan State University scientists earlier this year uses historical data to help determine whether or not indirect land use change (ILUC) is really occurring.

Seungdo Kim and Bruce Dale, both affiliated with MSU, used historical data rather than computer models or simulations. The ILUC issue became important for ethanol use after some researchers claimed the use and expansion of corn for ethanol causes ILUC in other countries, and used this information to help calculate the effects of corn-based ethanol on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In practical terms, ILUC means a corn farmer in the Midwest increases the amount of corn they grow because they can get a better return on it, thanks to ethanol; however, there are computer models that can simulate what sort of effect this could have on a farmer in Brazil, for example. Namely, the idea is a farmer in Brazil will react to what a farmer in the Midwest does by using less or more land for the production of a commodity for food.

If a farmer in Iowa uses more corn for ethanol, ILUC theorizes that the proverbial grower in Brazil reacts by converting forestland to grow the food crop to replace what the farmer in Iowa has decided to sell for ethanol. This, in turn, causes an increase in global GHG emissions.

If this is how it comes to be calculated, it can have an effect on U.S. policies with regard to ethanol production.

“If biofuel production in the United States has indeed triggered land conversion elsewhere, evidence for ILUC effects should be observed in the historical data,” Dale’s paper reads. “The historical data would include changes in the area of forestlands, total arable lands and croplands for animal feed and food associated with biofuel production in the United States. Few studies have attempted to find evidence for ILUC from the historical data.”
The authors go on to state they conducted a number of tests to find out if ILUC has occurred in different regions in the world. According to ILUC hypothesis, corn ethanol production, as well as biodiesel, should result in a decrease in commodity exports and an increase in food prices.

This should be followed by an increase in land conversions for the production of food crops, followed by increased GHG emissions.

Their results “provide strong evidence that either no ILUC has occurred due to U.S. biofuel production up through the end of 2007 or that the empirical data cannot detect ILUC due to U.S. biofuel production.”

The paper goes on to claim soybean expansion in Brazil occurred because of increased demand from China, and that increased canola production in Australia occurred because of its Canola Check monitoring program. It states the increase in canola production occurred in 1998-99, before the new ethanol policies were in place. It also says population pressure is the reason behind agricultural expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The authors go on to state since so little effort has been made to measure any possible ILUC from actual data, they encourage more efforts to do just that. Their paper was published in the July issue of Biomass and Bioenergy.
A slightly different angle is offered in a paper by Madhu Khanna and Christine Crago of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In it, the authors do not say the ILUC hypothesis is incorrect, only that it’s difficult to measure the effect of biofuel on ILUC.

They believe the best way to address ILUC is through international agreements to regulate global carbon emissions and to encourage sustainable land practices around the world.

The policy brief can be found online at http://farmdoc.illinois.edu/policy/index.asp