Biodiesel is Renewable fuel which is made from vegetable oils, animal fats or processed restaurant fat.
Soybean oil is the most commonly used oil for biodiesel production. Soybeans are also an vital ingredient in many food and animal feed products, and we wanted to learn more about the sustainability of soybean cultivation and biodiesel production.
Sustainable development is a priority
Cindy Pulskamp is a farmer in North Dakota who also serves on the United Soybean Board and is the director of The Center for Food Integrity. She said sustainability is a priority for farmers, and what that means varies from farm to farm.
“When you talk about sustainability, longevity is a big part of it. This year, the farm I’m a part of is going to be 110 years old,” she said. “Sustainability is also constantly changing. As soon as you learn something that makes you better, you raise the bar to be better than you were. The sustainability that I look for in our soy and our farm is to always challenge yourself and find new and better ways to make a better product.”
Biodiesel helps improve sustainability by using every part of the grain, said Mac Marshall, vice president of market intelligence at the United Soybean Board.
“When you crush the beans, you get about 80 percent meal and about 20 percent oil. The meal fraction is where the protein is, and most of that is used to feed livestock,” he said.
As for the oil, some is used in food products, such as cooking oil and salad dressing. About 30 years ago, farmers began funding research to find more ways to exploit soybean oil and developed biodiesel, Marshall said. Biodiesel is often used in vehicles, such as trucks and buses.
Biodiesel and Food Prices
There has been some doubt as to whether the exploit of soy as fuel has caused food prices to rise. test by Purdue University found that biofuels have little impact on food prices because only a diminutive fraction of soy is used as fuel. When soy is processed to produce oil to meet demand for biofuels, it means more meal is available for animal feed, which lowers the price of animal protein products, the study found.
“Our economic model links farm supply of soybeans to retail demand for various food products. After assessing the impact of rising demand for soybean oil on grocery store prices, we found that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was little changed,” said study author Jayson Lusk, who was a food and agriculture economist at Purdue University at the time of the study. “While increased demand for biofuels increased retail prices for oil by 0.16% to 4.41% across categories, retail prices for animal products such as dairy, beef, pork, chicken and eggs decreased by 0.01% to 0.16%.”
Biodiesel and the Carbon Footprint
Biofuels are sustainable for other reasons as well, Marshall said.
“Renewable diesel is essentially a one-for-one replacement for petroleum-based diesel. Instead of consuming a gallon of petroleum-based diesel, which is produced by digging it out of the ground, we produce the same gallon of fuel that has the same utility without the extractive release of carbon into the atmosphere,” he said.
AND full life cycle analysis It has been found that biodiesel produced from oil plants can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 69% compared to diesel fuel.
Pulskamp said biodiesel could lend a hand reduce emissions in situations where electric vehicles are not an option, such as huge trucks or farm equipment that require more power, and in areas where there is no infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
“Biofuels can bridge the divide because biofuels take a huge amount of carbon out of the atmosphere, and you don’t lose power,” she said. “Once the oil is taken out of the ground, it’s gone. But soybeans are harvested, and the next year we grow them again and make more food and fuel. That’s one of the wonderful things about soy.”
Marshall said that when it comes to sustainability, farmers are a key part of the solution.
“First and foremost, we think about global nutrition and the need to continue to produce food for a growing population,” he said. “In the United States, we can’t afford to increase land production, nor would it be the best management of a finite resource. So our farmers need to focus on efficiency, to get the most out of what they have on each acre of land, to grow as much as possible.”
Pulskamp said there are many tools available to lend a hand farmers be more sustainable, such as using genetics to breed healthier crops and learning how to best manage nutrients in the soil. “Deep in my heart, the best thing I can do is know that I’ve done my best to produce a really good product. I’ve talked to many, many of my colleagues who are soybean farmers, and they believe the same thing.”
