Farmer Interest in and Willingness to Grow Pennycress as an Energy Feedstock

Federal Aviation Administration2021PDFJournal ArticleZhou, Xia VivianJensen, Kimberly LLarson, James AEnglish, Burton CUnited States. Federal Aviation Administration. Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and EnvironmentUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville. Department of Agricultural and Resource EconomicsUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Environment and EnergyMDPIUnited StatesStakeholdersAcceptanceCropsSustainable transportationAviation fuelsBiomass fuelsCostsEconomic analysisLocationPlantsProfitabilitySupply chain managementinterestwillingness to growpennycressoilseed cover cropsASCENTenergies-14-0206613-C-AJFE-UTENN-005This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Journal ArticlePennycress can be used as a renewable biomass because its harvested seeds can be converted into biofuel, supplying, for example the aviation industry. Pennycress can be adopted as a winter cover crop to make extra profit in addition to summer cash crops. This study ascertains influences on row crop farmers\u2019 interest in growing pennycress to supply a biofuels industry. The study uses data from a survey of row-crop farmers in seven US states. Effects of farm and farmer attributes on acceptance of a farmgate pennycress price are measured. Nearly 58% were interested in growing pennycress if profitable. Among those interested, 54.4% would accept the farmgate pennycress price offered. Positive influences on interest included farm size, education, and familiarity with pennycress, while concern about knowledge on growing pennycress, and use of no-till practices had negative influences. Farmers aged 40 to 65 were more likely to accept the price, while share of rented hectares and no debt had positive influences. More risk-averse farmers and those using no-till were less likely to accept. Results suggest that the majority of row crop farmers would be interested in growing pennycress if profitable, while the overall willingness to accept the farmgate price was when it was at $0.28/kg.116