Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) apparently believes so. He acknowledges that corn ethanol cannot provide a significant share of the nation’s motor fuel supply. He proposes to divert federal farm bill support from traditional crops to switchgrass and other putative biofuels of the future.

My prediction: (1) Cellulosic ethanol will not be commercially viable in 5 to 10 years, contrary to Sen. Harkin’s hope; (2) subsidy-dependent farmers will demand that any new subsidies for switchgrass be added to, rather than diverted from, existing subsidies, and farm-state politicians will oblige.
Sen Harkin: Moving Ethanol Beyond Corn Base Key In Farm Bill

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Creating an ethanol industry in the U.S. not dependent solely on the nation’s ability to produce corn will be one of the most important goals Congress addresses as it writes the 2007 farm bill, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Tuesday.

That may mean taking money from traditional agriculture commodities and diverting it to support crops like switchgrass that are not yet of commercial value, but may soon be new cornerstones of the renewable fuel industry, he said.

Harkin, who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, spoke to reporters Tuesday in the first teleconference of what is expected to become a weekly update on the making of the 2007 farm bill. The 2002 farm bill is scheduled to expire Sept. 30.

U.S. farmers will meet the ethanol industry’s demand for 3.4 billion bushels of corn this year - according to the latest government forecast - but there’s only so much corn the U.S. can produce. A commercially viable cellulose-based ethanol industry may still be years away from reality, but Harkin said it’s the duty of Congress to support the future of renewable fuel production.

Beyond corn- and soybean-based energy crops, Harkin said, the U.S. agriculture sector “has even greater untapped potential for energy production. A prime goal for this farm bill must be to provide the framework to unleash that potential.”

Biofuel production in the U.S. was less than 2 billion gallons a year in 2001 and is expected to top 6 billion this year, Harkin said, but that falls far short of what the U.S. needs to produce. His goal is for the production of 30 billion gallons annually by the year 2020, and for that to happen there needs to be much more feedstock for ethanol.

Regions in the U.S. not involved in ethanol production will likely become involved when the industry is no longer corn-dependent, and that means new sources of profit for rural communities, he said.

“When I talk about energy and I talk about cellulose, you know, switch grass can be a commodity,” Harkin said. “It may not be a commodity now, but in the  next five to 10 years it could be a very big commodity … Why are commodities just limited to what we’ve done in the last … 50 years? Maybe there are new commodities out there we should be investing in.”

To support future cellulosic ethanol sources, Harkin said, Congress should consider shifting some funds away from the billions of dollars slated to go to traditional crop farmers through direct government payments over the next five years.