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Poll says farmers have concerns on using corn stover for ethanolCEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP)--Proponents tout left over plant materials from corn harvest to make ethanol as an environmentally friendly way to produce the renewable fuel. But a new poll shows that many farmers are concerned that the practice could lead to soil erosion. The Iowa State University Extension polled farm operators on the issue in the 2007 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll. Seventy-five percent of the nearly 1,100 respondents said that removing the plant residue, called corn stover, will increase soil erosion. David Laird, a professor in the ISU Department of Agronomy, agrees with the farmers and writes in a report that although corn stover is often referred to as waste, it is a vital component of soil agrosystems. "Crop residues contain substantial amounts of plant nutrients. If crop residues were harvested every year, these nutrients would have to be replaced by increased fertilizer use," he said in his report. "If all aboveground crop residues were removed year after year, the quality of our soils would rapidly deteriorate." Laird's report is titled "The Charcoal Vision: A Win-Win-Win Scenario for Simultaneously Producing Bioenergy, Permanently Sequestering Carbon, while Improving Soil and Water Quality." The Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll has been conducted annually since 1982. The 2007 poll focused on the bioeconomy and its impact on Iowa farming. The ISU Extension mailed a questionnaire to a statewide panel of 1,473 farm operators and surveys were returned by 1,095 producers, for a response rate of 74 percent. They were asked to rank their level of agreement on a five-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." Moving the state toward energy independence was considered a worthy goal by 86 percent of the respondents, and 77 percent said Iowa should lead the country in research and innovation on the bioeconomy. While almost half of the farm operators said ISU's top research priority should be biorenewable energy, 75 percent believed that research on biofuels should not take the place of traditional crop and livestock research. 3/3/08 Date: 2/27/08
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