The Bio-based Economy

The bio-based economy can and should be to the 21st century what the fossil-based economy was to the 20th century. Agriculture will be core to the bio-based economy, providing source materials for commodity items, e.g. liquid fuels and value-added products such as chemicals and materials. For example, a hectare (2.47 acres) of biomass crop converted to 16,800 L (4,450 gallons) of ethanol at a cost of $0.13/L ($0.50/ gallon), grown on 20 Mha (50 million acres) of non-prime agricultural land would, along with domestic petro-leum, enable national self-sufficiency in gasoline. At the same time, agriculture will continue to provide food and feed that are even more healthful and safe. The public-good benefits that will accrue from the bio-based economy are compelling (Fig. 1). They include national and homeland security, economic advantages to farmers, industry, rural communities, and society, environmental benefits at the global, regional, and local levels—including sustainability—and other benefits to society in terms of human health and safety. New crops and new uses are central to the bio-based economy. A combination of aggressive facilitating, national policy, public and private investment, and development of the necessary science and technology is needed to realize these benefits in a reasonable time frame. THE ROOTS The bio-based economy has historical roots in the 1920s and 1930s in the chemurgic movement. Henry Ford thought that ethanol, not gasoline, would fuel the automobile. Also, he made car bodies from soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr., Fabaceae]. Agriculture had the problem of overproduction for limited food and feed markets then as it does today. New agricultural markets were needed then as they are today. The Agricultur