BCAP Program Presents Opportunities and Challenges for Landowners
Curtis Seltzer writes in LandThink that the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) administered by the USDA could help landowners, specifically foresters, in utilizing slash (tree tops) left on the ground from logging and low-value species that are not worth cutting for pulp.
Seltzer explains:
On my own lands in the past, I have told loggers to simply drop these low-value species to improve the resource-uptake of the high-value species left in place for the next harvest. I have seen loggers refuse to cut and haul low-value hardwoods to a pulpwood yard six miles from the logging site because it wasn’t worth their while to do so.
To make BCAP feasible for landowners, qualified BCAP facilities would need to be reasonably close to the logging sites. Processors who would “alter” the raw product for use in these facilities would also need to be available.
Private timberland owners would benefit from BCAP rules that encourage using slash and low-value species culled for TSI purposes in small, decentralized biomass facilities, say, one to a county. The technology for burning wood to make either process heat or steam for power generation is well-known. Focus on many small facilities, rather than a handful of very large ones, would spread this program’s benefits and not concentrate harvesting pressure on a handful of timber resources.
BCAP was authorized in 2008 by the Farm Bill and provides incentive payments for those investing in new energy crops that can displace fossil fuels. Congress intended for BCAP to jumpstart the non-food cellulosic and advanced biofuels production industry by encouraging the development of a robust feedstock market. But it got off to a rough start.
Steve Squillario writing for Biomass Intel explains:
Biomass Crop Assistance Program has led to some unintended economic repercussions. Through subsidies of up to $45 per ton, this previously overlooked provision within Congress’ 2008 Farm Bill aimed to provide a financial incentive for the lumber industry to sell its waste – i.e., timber byproducts in the form of sawdust and wood shavings – for conversion into biofuels. However, such “waste” represents a commodity for the nation’s composite wood manufacturers, which use this resource to produce wood panels for use in such products as entertainment centers and kitchen cabinets. Because these subsidies have caused the cost of the byproduct to increase dramatically, these manufacturers are feeling an additional financial crunch.
BCAP is not capped so if it ultimately costs as much as USDA predicts, it will become the highest-funded program in the 2008 Farm Bill’s Energy Title.
The program funds two main areas:
- Collection, harvest, storage, & transpo (CHST) — provides matching payment for “eligible material owners upon delivery to qualified conversion facility” which must be utilized “to produce biofuel or bio-based products”
- Project Areas program — provides 75 percent of cost to establish perennial biomass crops
Although some matching payments are already in the pipeline, the BCAP program is on hold until at least August 2010 pending Congressional review of the final guidelines. This means that local Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices will no longer accept new applications for matching payments under BCAP until the full program is adopted.
More on BCAP’s proposed final guidelines.
Image: Flickr/arbeer.de
