Restricting Switchgrass Biomass Feedstock Production to Marginal Land to Limit Competition with Food Production

Production of switchgrass as a dedicated energy crop in the U.S. was proposed as a way to produce valuable products on millions of acres that had been bid from traditional crop production by a variety of federal programs. The objective of the present study is to determine the expected economic consequences in terms of cost to deliver biomass feedstock, from restricting switchgrass production to marginal land for a case study region, when (a) land use is restricted to class IV; (b) land use is restricted to classes III and IV; and (c) use of land capability classes I, II, III, and IV is permitted. A mathematical programming model was constructed and solved to determine the optimal quantity, location, and quality of the land leased. For the case study region, restricting land use to only capability class IV increases the land requirement by 44% and increases the cost to deliver feedstock by 32% compared to when switchgrass production is permitted on land classes I-IV