Newsvine - Bill Urges Farmers to Grow Energy Crops

Sarah Viet, a fermentation research analyst for ethanol producer Poet, adds water to a beaker of ground corn stover, April 24, 2007, at Poet's lab in Sioux Falls, S.D. The company, which produces about a billion gallons of corn-based ethanol each year, plans to adapt its Emmetsburg, Iowa, plant to also produce cellulosic ethanol. (AP Photo/Dirk Lammers)

Bill Urges Farmers to Grow Energy Crops

(AP/Newsvine) Legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate this week would entice farmers located near ethanol biorefineries to grow dedicated energy crops.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said his bill would offer incentives to farmers who plant switchgrass, fast-growing trees and other cellulosic feedstocks and deliver them to the nation's next generation of ethanol plants. Cellulose is the woody material in branches and stems that makes plants hard.